


Heart on the Table

by FelicisQuill2



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Doctor Clarke, Dystopia, F/M, Falling In Love, Flirting, Fluff, Hurt Bellamy, Jealous Bellamy, Jealous Clarke, Life or Death Situations, Nuclear Reactors, Rescue Missions, Romance, Smut, Soft Epilogue, party in arkadia, post-season 3, season 4 speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:50:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7194116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelicisQuill2/pseuds/FelicisQuill2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You don't get anything! I'd rather be volatile with you than calm with anyone else. I don’t want to go be a Grounder. Roan and I weren’t talking about making Sky Crew into the thirteenth clan. He was asking me -"</p><p>Clarke bites her lip and watches a snowflake turn lazily as it rocks slightly on its string.</p><p>“Where he could pick up a new Grounder coat? Did he think you knew all the best places to shop?” Bellamy's half joking, half harsh.</p><p>She really might hit him before this is over. His words stab into her stomach more than they should. “Stop acting like such a dick.”</p><p>“If I’m such a dick, why are you still hanging onto me?” he questions, his voice dangerously low. He stretches out his right arm, so his hand presses into the wall next to her head, making it harder for her to escape as he towers over her. "Don't you trust me with the truth by now?"</p><p>-----<br/>Clarke knows sustaining life on Earth was always a fragile enterprise, but keeping the peace between herself and Bellamy is somehow harder. As the apocalypse nears, how honest will they be with each other? How far will they go to save their people? And what secrets threaten to burst out as the end looms larger?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Weak and Weary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Danisha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Danisha/gifts).



> What if Clarke wasn't quite so strong and stubborn? What if Bellamy wasn't quite so quick to forgive? Let's venture beyond the facade of "head and heart" character sketches and give them time to have a real conversation.
> 
> Thanks for reading - hope you enjoy it! :) As always, comments are life, and I love getting them! Big thanks to everyone for their awesome encouragement and thoughtful opinions! 
> 
> If you have an idea for a Bellarke story you'd like me to write, shoot it my way! This one's for @danisha, who's always been there to flail about Bellarke with me and engage in fun chats about the show! :)

_“He's not your Prince Charming if he doesn't make sure you know that you're his princess.” ~ Demi Lovato_

 

The sharp, consistent pounding in the back of Clarke’s head dulls as she watches the sword plunge into Pike’s stomach, drops of blood flying through the air. If Bellamy wasn’t holding her arm, she’s sure her knees would give out. She sees Pike’s eyes bulge as his mouth forms a final, surprised “Oh,” before he crumples to the ground. Octavia turns slowly to look at her brother, and in that moment, everything seems to freeze. She casts him a hauntingly defiant glance, then turns and walks quickly out of the room.

 

Bellamy’s face is a mask of shock. Clarke is gazing up at him, wide-eyed, still trying to make sense of what she just witnessed. _He can’t take much more of this_ is the unbidden thought that flits into her mind. Bellamy takes a step forward toward the doors, forgetting Clarke is still attached to him, and she wobbles. One lone IV needle taped to the side of her arm connects her to the lifeless body of Ontari and the tragedy of what she just experienced in the City of Light.

           

“Bellamy, wait,” she says, gripping his forearm more tightly. “Let her go. There’s no way down from this tower anyway. She can’t leave.”

 

Murphy, still wrapped around Emori, looks at her and nods briefly, assuring her that her words are correct. Meanwhile, Abby rushes over to Pike, kneels down at his side as the crimson blood spreads quickly over the tile floor, and puts her fingers to his neck.

 

“He’s gone,” she says quietly to the room at large and closes his eyes.

 

Kane groans behind her. “Miller, Murphy, help me bring him to the table over there. We need to clean up his body, so we can move him out of here when we go,” he says, pointing toward a table in the back corner. They nod and spring into action.

           

Abby’s eyes find her daughter’s, as they used to do after moments of danger on the ground. “Let me get you unhooked, Clarke. Hold on a second,” she says.

           

Shaking his head slightly as the sight before him, Bellamy makes room for Abby, lightly holding Clarke’s arm up and giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. A few seconds later, Clarke is free and sitting upon the throne once more. Abby kneels down in front of her.

           

“Are you sure you’re ok? Do you feel dizzy? Do you have a headache?” she asks worriedly, pushing several stray blonde hairs away from Clarke’s face.

           

“Yeah, I’m fine, mom. Really. When the flame came out, it made my head pound, but it’s starting to feel better,” she replies.

           

“Go find her some water, Bellamy,” Abby says as she begins rummaging in her bag, pulling out two small white pills.

           

He nods and walks out of the room. Clarke watches Murphy, Miller, and Kane lug Pike’s body across the floor, a smear of blood trailing across the tiles in its wake. Her mind flickers back to Octavia.

           

“Mom, he’s just going to go after her, and then they’ll fight, and what if she –” Clarke tries to get up, but Abby holds her down. She doesn’t know what else Octavia is capable of at this moment, but the possibilities horrify her.

           

“He’ll be fine. He’s coming right back,” Abby whispers reassuringly.

           

A minute later, Bellamy returns holding a clay mug brimming with water.

           

“Thank you,” Abby smiles up at him, reaching out for it. She pushes the pills into Clarke’s hand. “Come on now, take these. They’re going to help your head. And then I want you to lie down for a little while. You’ve been through an ordeal, Clarke, and that shock,” she gestures to the side of the room where Kane is placing a cloth over Pike’s body, “did nothing to help calm your heart rate.”

           

“I told you, I’m fine,” Clarke replies before swallowing the pills and taking a drink of water.

           

“I’m glad to hear it,” Abby says, cupping her daughter’s face between her hands. “But your heart’s been pumping night blood through your body, and that’s not normal. I just got you back, and I’m not taking any more chances.”

           

She shifts her attention to the man standing silently over them. “Bellamy, can you find her a place to lie down and rest? It’s going to take us a little while to figure out a way to get everyone down the tower safely,” she says.

           

“Sure,” he answers, but Clarke moves past them both, walking over to Ontari’s body, gazing down at the open chest and swollen heart within in that kept her alive while she tried to save them all.

           

Bellamy tries to follow her, but Abby steps in front of him quickly.

           

“Those pills I gave her are a mild sedative,” she whispers. “I didn’t want to give her anything too strong after what she’s just been through. But she needs to rest, even if it’s just for a couple of hours. She can’t travel down the tower until she does. It’s too strenuous. Those pills will knock her out within a half hour or so.”

           

He nods.

           

“I need you to stay with her, please. I know she’ll be safe with you, ok?” she looks up into his battle-scarred face, caked in lines of dirt.

           

“I’ll take care of her,” he promises.

           

“You always do,” she returns.

           

Clarke doesn’t hear Murphy walking up behind her. “You know, I always was a heartbreaker,” he jokes, throwing Clarke a small smile. Clarke tries to smile back, but it feels like a tremendous effort.

           

“I just wanted her to live,” Clarke sighs, looking up around the room. Her gaze lands on Jaha, who is sitting on the ground with his knees curled up to his chest and his palms pressed hard against his forehead. “I wanted them all to live and to have something to live for.”

           

Murphy raises his eyebrows slightly for a second, then says, “We’ll live to see another day on the ground, Clarke. That’s a lot more than I would have bet on yesterday.”

           

_180 more days and counting, to be exact._

           

“Yeah,” she manages a half-smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s unbearable to think about the nuclear reactors scattered all over the globe right now melting down as they speak. But she can’t shatter her people’s dreams of a peaceful future. Not yet.

           

“Clarke,” Bellamy’s deep voice breaks into her thoughts, and she feels his hand on her shoulder. “Come on, let’s find a place for you to rest,” he says, nodding to Murphy, whose face suddenly takes on a more shrewd look reminiscent of the old John. But before Clarke can process it, she’s being led away from him and the rest of her people.

           

The corridors are still and quiet. Yet through the windows, an eruption of joy can be heard floating up from the crowded streets far below as the chipped grounders reunite with friends and loved ones. An image of Lexa lunging toward ALIE’s army with her swords drawn slips into Clarke’s mind, unbidden. She shuts her eyes tight for a second.

           

Bellamy guides her around several corners and down a flight of stairs lit only by two torches mounted into the rough, stone wall. Unaware of where they were walking before, she looks up surprised when they reach the doorway that leads into her old chambers.

           

“I thought you’d be more comfortable in here,” Bellamy says as he pushes the door open.

           

She looks up at him questioningly.

           

“Murphy told me this is where you stayed . . . before,” he explains, looking over her head and into the room.

 

A canopy bed lies at one end of the cavern-like space, complete with gauzy, burgundy-colored hangings that Clarke suddenly has a deep urge to crawl behind. Her head feels a little foggy.

           

“Thank you,” she says and walks inside, sitting at the edge of the bed. Bellamy moves toward an old-fashioned, rose-colored pitcher and basin on a table under the mullioned window and begins pouring water onto a cloth. She doesn’t remember seeing any of it during her first stay here.

           

She watches him carefully as his back is turned to her. He takes his time wringing out the cloth, his tanned hands stained with the dirt of their battle. After a minute, he kneels down in front of her and gently begins cleaning her face with the cloth. It’s so sweet and unexpected that she hears her breath catch. His eyes track across her face, as if he’s taking in every detail of the slopes of her cheekbones and the curve of her jaw.

           

“Bellamy,” she whispers, “I’m so sorry. I know that you knew Pike well, and I know he was trying to help us fight for the right thing. Octavia . . .” she doesn’t know what to say to explain Octavia. “She never should have . . . stabbed him like that, but losing Lincoln just ripped her apart and –”

           

“We can talk about that later,” he says abruptly, wiping the last fleck of dried blood from above her lip. He pulls a chair leaning against the wall over toward the bed, sits down, and turns his full attention back to Clarke. “First, tell me what you meant when you said we hadn’t saved the world yet.”

           

Taking a deep breath, Clarke relays to him everything she learned in the City of Light from Becca and ALIE. She tells him about the twelve nuclear reactors scattered across the globe and the seven that are melting down. She does not stop when he opens his mouth to speak because she knows if she does, she might not be able to continue. So she moves steadily forward since he has to understand that in six months, only four percent of the Earth, this ground they had fought so hard for and died to survive on, would be inhabitable. Finally, Clarke’s wearied voice tapers off as she says quietly, “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

           

He runs his hand over his face, massaging his temples with the tips of his fingers. She wonders where the two deepest, jagged scars on it came from. But then she remembers the rage of Octavia as she snapped at her brother beside the signal fire that led them to Luna. She recalls Octavia’s normally beautiful face stained with hatred in the Throne Room as she murdered Pike and the choked hesitancy Bellamy has used while interacting with his sister since she’s returned from Polis and been able to watch them. Instinctively, the pieces move into place. It causes bile to rise in the back of her throat.

           

Tentatively, she reaches out her hand and very lightly traces one of the scars with the tips of two fingers. Bellamy’s brown eyes snap up to meet hers in surprise.

           

“Octavia did this to you, didn’t she?” she whispers.

           

He looks down at the floor, silent for several seconds.

           

“I deserved it,” he says finally.

           

“No! No, you didn’t deserve to be beaten by your sister,” she says, a measure of force returning to her voice as she suddenly stands up. “You didn’t kill Lincoln. Pike did that. She can’t think it’s ok to just –”

           

But Clarke only makes it halfway across the room before a wave of dizziness washes over her, causing her to stop and grab onto a dresser for support.

           

Bellamy is at her side before she falls.

           

“You ok?” he asks anxiously, one hand wrapped around her elbow and the other circling around her waist, leading her back to the bed.

           

“I’m fine. Just got a little dizzy,” she replies.

           

“Listen, Clarke, it’s more complicated than you realize,” he begins when she’s seated on the bed and he’s across from her once more.

 

“Then explain it to me!” She is _so_ close to stamping her foot like a petulant child.

 

He looks at her and sighs.

 

“You weren’t there. You didn’t see how Pike was. You didn’t see how _I_ was . . . what I turned into,” he says.

 

And she feels the tears laced with her anger welling up again as she stares down at his boots. _You left me_ , she hears his words echoing back to her from weeks ago, and they stab into her all over again.

 

“I’m so sorry for leaving . . . ” it’s all she can manage because her voice is cracking, and she knows it’s not enough.

 

“Hey, hey, look at me,” he entreats, circling his hands around her wrists and rubbing them with his thumbs. “It’s ok. Everything’s going to be all right. We can talk about Octavia later. What’s important now is you getting some rest. Fighting ALIE’s army is enough to earn any self-respecting delinquent the chance to do whatever the hell she wants,” he grins at her with a softened expression.

           

She smiles back, caught off guard by the second show of humor in an hour. His quick-witted sarcasm used to make her grin easily. But the days of the dropship are long gone, and with them went whatever light-heartedness he brought with him from the Ark. He’s so scarred now – in more ways than one she realizes - staring sadly at the marks etched across his - what she’d always found to be rather attractive - features.

 

“Fine, just for a little while,” she concedes. A few seconds go by. “But when I see her later, she’s going to wish she never touched you,” she says bitingly, as if affirming this fact both to herself and to him. Then, she kicks off her boots, removes her grounder coat, and yanks the covers up to her torso while settling herself against the headboard.

 

He’s moved by this sudden display of loyalty, but he doesn’t know what to say. He’s understood for a long time now that her feelings just don’t run as deeply as he’s let his own travel. Their partnership recently being infused with new respect and commitment will have to be enough. And maybe a touch of bravado on his part when he feels himself in any danger of being drawn in by the maddeningly alluring side of Clarke Griffin.

 

She begins to unravel the few braids left in her wild blonde locks a bit aggressively, smoothing her hair out with her fingers.

 

“Easy there, Princess. Your hair’s the only way we’re going to be able to follow you through the woods back to Arkadia,” he smirks.

 

“Shut up,” she huffs at this resurrection of the old nickname, flinging a pillow at him. He chuckles. It’s quiet for several minutes as Clarke settles down into the bed. He picks up his chair and moves it back against the wall when he sees her eyes close. But just as his hand touches the door handle on his way out to guard the room, her voice startles him, and he turns.

 

“Can I at least tell you what happened in there?” she asks suddenly, propped up on one elbow.

           

“You’re supposed to _sleep,”_ Bellamy argues.

 

“Please, I need to talk with you about it,” she says.

 

So he sits down at the edge of the bed and looks at her carefully for a moment.

           

“Ok,” he finally says.

           

The pictures flash vividly before her eyes as she recalls the place with the gleaming skyscrapers. She remembers ALIE’s army not recognizing her walking down the streets, Jasper and his strawberry ice cream, and the desperate running once she saw her blood pooling on the ground and realized everyone else saw it, too. She tells him about Lexa saving her from out of nowhere, about Jasper’s haunting speech about the nature of humanity in that darkened alley, and about Raven’s ingenious symbol that gained her access to the City of Light’s version of Polaris. She knows it’s important to be totally honest with him. She wants him to understand how Lexa charged at the chipped mass of people that crowded into the alley in order to save her and buy her time to pull the lever.

 

And she does her best to explain the feeling of gazing down at their delicate, blue-green orb of a planet just like she had done on the Ark. Only this time, it was in horror as she came to understand that – despite the very best efforts of humanity - they had not escaped the nuclear apocalypse, after all.

           

“ALIE told me that we could save everyone together by bringing them into the City of Light and taking away their pain. That’s what she was trying to do. In some twisted way, she thought she was helping us all escape our pain and the planet’s fate,” she finishes, a touch of bitterness in her tone. “But I told her you couldn’t ease pain, you had to overcome it. And that we always find a way through whatever comes. So I pulled the lever with a few seconds to go, hoping I was right. I wanted us all to have a choice about what we do next.”

           

She seeks Bellamy’s eyes, desperate to know whether or not he approves of her decision. But he’s not looking at her anymore. He’s pacing back and forth, hands on his hips.

           

“You did the right thing. It had to be done. You had to pull the lever,” he says at last, but he’s still turned away from her.

           

“Bellamy? What is it?” she asks warily.

           

“I know you loved Lexa,” he says at last. His tone is fierce, and so is his expression. “I saw you stare at that chip in the outpost and in the forest when you thought nobody was looking. You believed she was still inside of it somehow. You loved her.” It sounds a lot like an accusation. “You can tell me all about how she saved you, but you won’t tell me how you felt about her. Do you think I can’t put two and two together, Clarke? Why can’t you just say what you mean for once? Why do I have to do it for you?”

           

Clarke’s crystal blue eyes widen. A flood of unpleasant warmth washes over her body. This certainly wasn’t what she expected from him. He had never spoken of her relationship with Lexa before. And it wasn’t how she wanted him to feel, either. She wasn’t trying to insult his intelligence. She wanted to be honest with him, but apparently she was failing him even in this.

 

He’s staring at her fixedly, fists clenched by his side, waiting for an explanation that he knows won’t satisfy him. Why she loved a woman that promised to help their people then left them all to die in the Mountain is incomprehensible to him.

           

Several more seconds pass by in strained silence. “I did love her,” she says at last, so softly he barely catches the words.

           

Bellamy purses his lips, shifting his weight backwards toward the door. It’s almost imperceptible, but Clarke notices at once.

           

“I knew you wouldn’t understand because of what happened at Mount Weather. I know she betrayed us then!” she rushes on. “But she came to want what was best for all of our people. She was changing before she died, really. She was our ally, and she was helping me. She didn’t want more blood spilled and never-ending wars! She – ”

           

“Clarke, it’s ok. Your private life’s your private life,” he says curtly. But then he’s hurrying back to the bed because Clarke is attempting to get up again in her haste to reach him, and the drugs Abby gave her are clearly having a strong effect. “You don’t owe me any explanation.”

           

“But I do need to explain it to you! You deserve an explanation.” She is adamant in her protesting, clinging to his forearms, and he knows it’s no good to argue with her when she looks so determined.

           

But that doesn’t mean he won’t try.

           

“For once in your life, can you just do what I tell you and stay in bed and rest? Please?” he demands, pushing her hands away from him and pulling the covers back over her legs.

 

He doesn’t think he can stay with her any longer and think about how she’s always been just beyond his grasp, even when she’s literally touching him. It’s been too long a day to mentally deal with this, too. Not that they ever really deal with it. How he risked his life and was tortured in the Mountain because she thought it was the best plan. How he pulled that lever with her, shouldering the burden, although she still didn’t see it that way. How he was then swiftly abandoned, replaced by a warrior woman intent on turning Clarke into her prisoner in this very tower. How Lexa became her partner, and how he was left to deal with the delinquents falling apart inside the walls of Arkadia, the rise of Pike, and the death of Lincoln alone. How after having her ripped from his grasp in that abandoned subway station by Roan, she – the Great Wanheda with her Grounder-styled hair and makeup-heavy eyes – simply said, “I’m sorry,” and refused to leave Polis with him when he’d risked his and the others’ lives to get her safely back home. No, she chose to stay with _her_. Would they ever really deal with any of that? Probably not, because she has no idea how much she had hurt him.

 

He wants to ask her what happened to the girl who came to him asking for backup when she needed to save Jasper. Who listened to his fears about turning into a monster his mother could never be proud of that night deep in the woods. Who he taught how to shoot a gun and who flung herself into his arms when she realized the dropship blast had not killed him. _Where are you, Clarke? Who have you become?_ But he can’t say any of that because she’s just saved them yet again, and she’s exhausted and weak. And he doesn’t have the heart because - he thinks with a twist of cruel irony - ALIE had it right all along. He’s still _devoted_ to her. But he has no real idea why because the person he’s so committed to no longer exists. So he makes his face impassive because it’s all so pointless, isn’t it?

 

“I need to help the others figure out a way to get down this tower and back to Arkadia. And I can’t do that until you’ve slept. So sleep,” he demands.

           

She glares at him, but slides back down into the bed, though not before grabbing onto the sleeve of his black jacket to hold him in place beside her.

           

“Please sit down,” she moves over to give him space.

           

“Clarke, I’ve got to go stand guard until you wake up. And then I’ve got to help get us the hell out of here!” his voice is steeled.

           

“Bellamy, please try to hear me out. I need you to,” she sighs, her thumb moving down to run light circles into his knuckles of his right hand. “I did love her. But . . . ”

           

“But what?” he says flatly.

           

Clarke pulls at a loose thread in the bedspread. She can’t look at his face and see the hurt there. More hurt she caused.

           

“But . . . you meant more to me. I think I always knew that, and I-I didn’t want to lose you. I always worried about you, maybe more than the others. I wanted you to be safe and happy. I still do,” she says, daring to glance up at him carefully.

           

For a wild moment, he wonders what was in those sedatives, but then he realizes what she must mean. _She loves me like a brother, like she loved Wells. I’m like her family now, and Clarke is loyal to her family_ . . .

           

“You’re the only one who never lied to me,” she continues in a rush, knowing if she doesn’t say it now she may never get the courage to say it again. Suddenly, she’s so _sleepy._ “You did anything you could to protect me – to protect us all – and keep us safe. But when I stayed in Polis, I was running away from everything I'd done, and . . . I was running away from you, too.”

 

His face is so impossible to read. She decides to press on. “Bellamy, you have to believe me that I didn't know now how much it hurt you that I left, and I’m sorry.” Her voice begins to break. She takes a deep breath.

 

“I know it was wrong. I know I shouldn’t have gone. But what could I say to you when I came back to Arkadia? I had closed the dropship door on you. I sent you into Mount Weather to die. I left you at Camp Jaha and walked away. I didn’t come home when you asked me to. I was horrible to you. But, in my head, it was always about survival. I thought I was doing the right thing. I needed you to be there as a strong leader for the rest of our people. I trusted you to do that, and you did. I didn’t think about what it meant for you, how you felt. I should have because you were my best friend. But I didn’t think about how I felt, either. I couldn’t think about anything else but making sure we all lived. I shut everything else out. If I’d known that I was hurting you when I left, I want to say it would have changed things. But I don’t know. In my head, you had to be able to handle it all. You were strong enough. You were the strongest of a-a-all offf uh-ssss.”

           

The tears are freely racing down her cheeks now, making her words incomprehensible as sobs cause her shoulders to shake. His hand twitches to comfort her, but he sits motionless beside her instead, eyes intent on her face.

           

“I don’t even know why you fought so hard to protect me when I did those things to you,” she says, when she collects herself again.

           

Bellamy’s face looks pained now. “Clarke, how could you not – ”

           

“Please let me finish. You have to understand,” she pleads.

           

His eyes are glimmering, but his voice falls silent.

           

“So many people I loved have died no matter what I did to try to stop it. They died despite me or because of me, Bellamy. My dad, Wells, Finn, Lexa. So how could I protect you? You don’t know how much I wanted to. I know I betrayed you after Mount Weather. I know I should have stayed with our people, but I just couldn’t. And I’m so, so sorry—”

           

Her voice fractures into silvers of broken glass.

           

He moves in closer and wraps his arms around her a bit uncertainly, but Clarke leans her head into his chest immediately, silent tears slipping down her face as she quietly shakes. He tightens his grip.

           

“It’s ok, Clarke. It’s ok. Shhhh,” he repeats several times, rocking her very gently. “I forgive you for leaving, I do. It’s ok. It’s all over now.”

 

He knows it’s true because he feels the last vestiges of the anger he’d harbored toward her but been too afraid to acknowledge evaporating from his body. He feels lighter and more free. But Clarke is literally crumpling against him.

           

“I know you said you didn’t want to be angry with me anymore at the beach. But then we were attacked, and everything happened so fast. I didn’t know if you’d really forgiven me,” she cries into his soft, dark blue T-shirt.

 

This is the crux of the matter, he realizes at last. She wants to be absolved by him, once and for all. He can forgive her for leaving; he knows he already has. Because she’s come back, and she’s realized the terrible spiral of events her leaving caused. She’s been vulnerable enough to put into words things he’s only let rattle around in his brain late at night when he can’t sleep. So that has to be enough. But how can he ask her to apologize for finding love somewhere else while he was holding on to the memory of her the whole time? Nobody should have to apologize for that. He wants her to be free and safe and happy. So how can he ask her to apologize for not choosing to be those things _with him_? He can’t. He has to be grateful for what he has right in front of him: Clarke is alive and well. So he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do everything he can to restore their friendship.

 

“I meant it. I forgave you then. I forgive you now,” he says simply. “You closed the dropship door because you had to or the Grounders would’ve killed us all. And you sent me into Mount Weather because you believed I could help take down the Mountain Men. Plus, you worked hard to protect me while I was in there. I know you went off on your own because you saw 300 people killed in front of you – people we killed. But you tried to reach an alliance with the Grounders while you were in Polis to bring peace to our people. You’ve made the hard choices for the good of everyone, Clarke. That’s what a leader does. I know you always cared about our people.”

           

He sees a few of the wrinkles in her forehead smooth when he looks down at her, but she’s shaking her head nonetheless.

 

 _I care about you, too. So much_ , she thinks, but the words don’t find a way out of her mouth.

           

Instead, she settles on, “No, I should have done more for you.”

           

“Enough. We are going to get past all this. I promise,” he says forcefully. “It’s over now. You’re safe. And I’m going to keep it that way. We’re in this together, right?”

           

“Together, I promise. I won’t leave you again,” she solemnly echoes his words back to him, nodding fervently. He feels like a swarm of those translucent moth-like creatures, the ones that light up the forests at night, are flying through him.

           

He flashes her a grin straight out of the dropship days before moving toward the door.

           

“Now get some rest,” he chides, “Or your mom is going to kick my ass. I’ll be right here by the door,” he points to the chair.

 

Clarke suddenly looks distressed again.

           

“Wait! Stay with me? At least until I fall asleep?” she pushes back the covers wrapped around her legs, motioning him toward the bed.

           

Confusion flits across his face briefly, but not fast enough for her not to notice. She bites her lip.

 

“I get nightmares,” she confesses. “But maybe they won’t come if you’re here.”

 

He nods and walks back over to her slowly, noticing how the light from the torch on the wall above her head is making her hair sparkle.

           

He sits down next to her and stretches his legs out, sticking two pillows behind him to prop himself up.

                      

“I’m all yours,” he says softly, smiling at her. _She has no idea how true those words are._

           

Clarke still doesn’t think he fully understands everything she said. How could he when she hasn't wrapped her mind around what it all means either? Bellamy was right about one thing though: for someone as direct as she is, she never says exactly what she means when it comes to him. She’s so honest but still guarded somehow. Not trusting herself to speak – _And what could she say at this point, honestly? That she still doesn’t feel worthy of his loyalty after the horrors her decisions have made him endure?_ – she nods several times slowly and lies down on her side next to him. She's close enough to feel his body heat and smell the light scent of pine and cinnamon that cloaks him. It comforts her.

           

“Bellamy?” she asks his profile, which is illuminated by the faint golden candle glow surrounding the bed.

           

“Yeah?” he replies.

           

“What are we going to do about the nuclear reactors?” Now that the two of them have reached a level of peace, fear is beginning to claw at her insides as she shifts her focus to the radioactive horrors clambering toward them.

           

“We’ll figure something out. We always do,” his deep voice rumbles soothingly.

 

She realizes it’s time to start believing in his certainty again. She needs more of the faith that being around him seems to inspire in her.

 

“Ok,” she whispers and, wooziness overcoming her, slides her two hands around his right one before the peaceful darkness welcomes her.


	2. Flirt and Flutter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tiny sliver of peace between wars finds Clarke's resolve skidding away from her.

_“Life did not stop, and one had to live.” ~Leo Tolstoy_

 

In space talk, a satellite is an artificial object intentionally launched into orbit, typically to float around planets, moons, or even whole solar systems. Before the nuclear bombs, scientists used satellites to take pictures of faraway galaxies, track developing weather patterns in distant locations, and explore dark matter hidden deep within the universe. They provided knowledge and reassurance where previously there had been chaos and doubt. Wanted to explore a new star millions of miles away? Launch a satellite. Needed to monitor Mars’ unstable climate or spy on an enemy country’s new missile collection? A satellite would do the trick.

 

But what about when you’ve spent your whole life in captivity – in space – as the satellite? What then?

 

For 97 years, my people rotated around the planet we once called home in a graceful but unyielding ballet. On and on we danced in a vast orbit without music. Without room. Without freedom. But it wasn’t until “without air” joined the list of restrictions that the Council took notice. That’s when they decided 100 juvenile delinquents should rocket down to Earth on a dropship to see if air existed below.

 

It did.

 

But I still can’t catch my breath.         

 

It’s been ten months since we crash-landed, and I haven’t escaped being the satellite, orbiting around my home. I continue to be drawn toward a fixed point in time and space, never letting it – him – out of my sight for long. But even that hasn’t been enough to make a difference. To keep him safe.

 

I’m desperately pressing my fingers against a glass barrier in a futile attempt to reach something that cannot be reached. I’m screaming, throat raw and fists bruised from my incessant pounding on the nuclear power plant's door that won’t open. Strong arms are circling my waist, dragging me backward despite my best efforts to elbow whomever it is in the stomach. None of them understand that this absolutely cannot happen. I won’t let it happen. I hear a squelching noise, like boots stomping through mud, and know I’ve made some sort of impact on my captor. The arms around me slacken, and I race back to the door with its black marble keypad. Yet I don’t know what numbers to press. I don’t know how to fix this.

 

“Raven! RAVEN! Do something!” I scream into the walkie-talkie. “Please,” I whimper under my breath. “Or Bellamy’s going to die.”

 

***Three Months Earlier***

 

Summer creeps into Arkadia without anyone paying much attention. First the wild violets unfurl across the hilly regions just south of camp. Then, suddenly, green buds pepper the trees as the mornings grow humid. One evening a week after the Sky People return to Arkadia, what is left of the original delinquents sit around a campfire they no longer need for warmth. Thick ribbons of blood-orange and fuchsia streak across the sky around the setting sun, which is itself a fireball.

 

Raven laughs with Bryan on some makeshift log benches closest to the edge of the forest as Miller strutts around on the dirt in front of them, apparently imitating a crazed chicken he’d run into on patrol duty that morning. Jasper stares at the sunset, transfixed, a cup of Monty’s moonshine in his hand.

 

“Jasper! Do you hear me, man? Hello?” Monty tries for the third time. The complete lack of response causes him to sigh, get up, walk across the circle to Jasper, and shove his friend playfully on the shoulder.

 

“What? What was that for?” Jasper jolts, almost falling sideways off the log he perches on.

 

“I’ve been trying to ask you a question for the past five minutes. I was asking if you’re going to help me get started planting the vegetables tomorrow, and, you know, the other stuff we talked about . . . remember?” Monty asks, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

 

“Please,” Murphy snorts from across the fire, where he sits with his fingers lightly toying with a grinning Emori’s hair. “We all know that you scored some cannabis seeds at the Polis market. It’s not a secret.”

 

Monty opens his mouth to reply, looking a cross between annoyed and amused. But Clarke doesn’t get a chance to hear his retort as heat suddenly floods her. Bellamy slides down into the open space next to her, and placing a hand lightly on her back, leans forward to whisper into her ear, “We need to tell them soon.”

 

She’d been expecting the comment because it had come every day without fail since they’d returned home. But she just sighs, handing him the cup of moonshine she’d been saving for him before taking a long drag of her own. He had been patrolling the perimeters of Arkadia with Kane and other members of the Guard for the last two hours, assessing how best to build up the fences that ALIE’s army tore apart during her destructive rampage.

 

Clarke’s closes her eyes for a moment, allowing the warmth of her drink and the night breeze to calm her down. When she opens them, they flash to Harper, who is attempting to interrupt whatever is going on with Monty and Murphy by launching herself between them and exclaiming cheerfully, “Who’s up for a game of charades? We can try to impersonate each other.”

 

It seems to work. Her friends quickly split into teams, argument forgotten, shouting insults and taunts back and forth as they do so. Tucked away in a corner of the campfire, their heads close together, Bellamy and Clarke must look like two serious co-leaders who don't want to be disturbed by the antics of their peers, she figures.

 

“Tell whom exactly?” She finally whispers back to Bellamy. “Our friends? The Council? Everyone?”

 

It's his turn to drink. He downs the cup in a few seconds, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It feels like smoke engulfing his throat, but he manages only one cough. When he turns fully toward her, she realizes how close he's sitting. Her instinct is to shift away a few inches, but something holds her in place. There are flecks of gold in his dark, serious eyes she’d never really noticed before. She feels a blush sneaking up her neck; he hasn't moved his hand. But then, as if he's reading her thoughts, it is suddenly gone.

 

Bellamy shrugs out of his Ark-issued jacket and stares into the fire for a few seconds, seemingly oblivious to the joviality around him.

 

“At least the Council, they deserve to know,” he is keeping his tone light, but she still hears a hard edge behind it. “I’ve kept everything quiet for the last few days like you asked, but we’re running out of time, Clarke. We need to tell them at the meeting tomorrow. We need to get a plan in place if we’re going to survive.”

 

“I thought everyone could use a few days of not being worried about humanity’s imminent demise,” she half-smiles up at him. “And there’s still the small possibility that ALIE was just screwing with me, so I wouldn’t pull the lever.”

 

She looks up at him from underneath her eyelashes. His hand rests lightly on her knee, and he seems to be about to say something when his head jerks up at the sound of his name.

 

“Bellamy!” Harper shrieks out from across the circle where their friends cluster together doing impressions. She gazes at Raven, who has her hands wrapped around a rifle pointed at the tree line. Raven holds herself stiffly, and she has a severe expression on her face as she pivots on the spot, aiming her gun at multiple, invisible threats.

 

Clarke’s laughter splashes into his ears like the ancient wind chimes he’d once discovered as a child in a storage room on the Ark. He’d traded the unusual musical object for extra food rations for Octavia. But that is too painful to consider right now, so he pushes it from his mind.

 

“She’s got you pegged, soldier boy,” Clarke grins at him, applauding appreciatively. “Bravo, Raven!”

 

Monty moves around the circle refilling everyone’s cups while Raven takes a bow, pursuing her lips in a sassy way. Bellamy rolls his eyes amidst the clapping and hollering and slides his hand slightly up Clarke’s thigh. The effect is immediate. Her eyes snap to his. She can feel the light heat of his breath, laced with the sweet alcohol, on her face as he starts to speak.

 

“Look, I know you want this all to be over. I want that, too. But we’re not doing anyone any favors here. We have to give our people as much time as possible to figure out how to stop the nuclear reactors from melting down and killing us all,” he says in a low, serious voice.

 

_Since when is he the responsible one who keeps their plans on track? Why is she being so difficult about this?_

 

Clarke nods, but just barely. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I just wanted to live in a magical place a little while longer,” she says, watching the heel of her boot trace shapes into the dirt. She takes a few more sips from her replenished cup.

 

He understands what she means perfectly but doesn't think it's responsible to placate this fantasy of everything being all right for much longer. Still, he smirks a little bit, because her blue eyes looked so earnest just moments ago. “Hey, look at me,” he lightly cups her chin and turns her face to him. “We’re going to have a future, Princess.”

 

Her breath catches. _This is too close. He’s too close,_ her brain sends off alarm bells. _You mean our people are going to be on Earth for a very long time, right?_ It’s the clarifying question she wants to ask. She also wants to reach out and run her fingers through his dark curls, which look even more unkempt than usual after patrol duty. Her hand is halfway in the air before she catches herself and tucks her own blonde locks behind her ear, instead. _What the hell did Monty put in this moonshine?_

Instead she says, “I know we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure we all have a future.”

 

For the briefest of moments, he looks hurt. But then she blinks, and his face appears normal once more.

 

“So we tell your mom and Kane tomorrow at the Council meeting, agreed?” he asks.

 

“Agreed,” she replies.

 

“Good, now I’ve got something to show you. We’ve got to be fast though before we lose the light,” he says, jumping to his feet. Bellamy drains his second cup of moonshine before pulling Clarke up as well.

 

She feels lighter and definitely happier now that a decision has been made. She notices how the stars begin to reveal themselves through the hazy mist of a burgeoning twilight. It's true - they're going to lose the daylight if they don't hurry to wherever it is they're going. Bellamy leads her briskly by the hand toward a dense patch of woods to the left of what remains of the Ark. She pants slightly, almost jogging to catch up with his long strides.

 

“Hey! Where are you two going?” Jasper shouts after them.

 

“We’ll be back before dark,” is all Bellamy offers over his shoulder before he and Clarke disappear amidst the trees.

 

He doesn't let go of her hand until they emerge from the woods five minutes later and into a grassy meadow. There, the last of the sunlight illuminates patches of dainty, violet flowers Clarke immediately recognizes as Catnip. Beautiful, bright luminescent butterflies float through the meadow in varying shades of pink, orange, and yellow.

 

“Oh!” she exclaims delightedly, falling to her knees beside the nearest cluster of blooms. “Bellamy, this is fantastic! When did you find them?”

 

He grins broadly. “This afternoon when I was coming back from patrol duty,” he says.

 

Clarke gently begins tugging some of the flowers up by the roots, and he crouches down to help her.

 

“Catnip is going to be _so_ useful in the infirmary,” she says, more to herself than anything else. “It’s good for colds, breaking fevers, stopping bleeding and swelling, relieving migraines,” she rambles on, moving to rub her nose and leaving a trail of dirt across her cheek in the process.

 

“But wait,” she looks at Bellamy quizzically after a few moments. “How did you even know what this was?”

 

He stops plucking up the flowers and looks at her.

 

“You tend to do a lot of reading about survival when you plan on stowing away on the first dropship headed to Earth in a century,” he says. “I recognized these from an old botany book I flipped through on the Ark. I thought you would like them.”

 

“You never cease to amaze me, Bellamy Blake,” she says, a little in awe.

 

Bellamy reaches out and carefully sweeps the dirt off her face with his fingers. The light touch instantly sends electricity through Clarke. Her heart flutters a little. He seems to be shifting closer to her, and time slows down. Her eyes falls to his freckles and down to his lips as his fingers ghost over the curve of her cheek. Just then, a red-orange butterfly lands delicately on his shoulder.

 

Clarke bites her lip and giggles, a sound he hasn't heard in ages. “I think someone likes you,” she says softly.

 

“Is that so?” he asks, and his voice gives her chills.

 

But then a piercing yell shatters Clarke’s reverie, and she jumps back.

 

“Bellamy! Clarke! Come on, we have to get back to camp!” Miller bellows from the top of the hill near the forest. His hands are on his knees, and he's bent over as he tries to catch his breath fifty yards away from them.

 

“What’s going on?” Bellamy yells back, instantly alert and on his feet. He reaches down to help Clarke stand as well. She puts some healthy distance between them as soon as she's sure of her footing. _Seriously, the moonshine! Monty’s probably been brewing it since we landed. I knew I shouldn’t have drank it. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind . . ._

 

“Grounders, at least 100 of them on horseback, approaching the gates,” Miller gasps out. “We need to get back to camp, NOW.”


	3. Deep into That Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Bellamy get into a fight, and Clarke tells the Council all about the nuclear reactors.

_“I’m waking up to ash and dust_

_I wipe my brow, and I sweat my rust_

_I’m breathing in the chemicals_

_I’m breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus_

_This is it, the apocalypse.”_

_~Imagine Dragons, "Radioactive"_

 

“What the hell is it now?” Bellamy asks the tree trunks flying past them as they jog through the woods. The dying light makes it harder to see tangled tree roots, and Clarke finds herself nearly falling twice as she struggles to keep up with his pace. Miller raced ahead back to camp; apparently, there was no time to explain anything.

 

“Maybe they’re here to talk about making us the thirteenth clan again,” Clarke huffs out as they reach the edge of the campfire. They survey the scene quickly. Gray smoke tangles into the sky in loose coils where the blaze burned several minutes before. Cups of moonshine lay scattered around the log benches haphazardly as if everyone fled the area in a rush.

 

“Yeah, that’s likely. Let’s see, there’s Ontari dead at our hands, Roan captured because of us, and Luna believing we're war-mongering, blood-thirsty monsters from the sky," Bellamy bites back.

 

Clarke’s stomach turns over at the mention of Roan. As much as she had hated him for capturing her and stabbing Bellamy, she believes he would have helped them defeat ALIE and feels guilty that he was shot – and most likely killed – because of her decisions.

 

As they move swiftly back up the steep ground toward Arkadia, Abby comes into view over the hill.

 

“Clarke! Bellamy! Inside, now!” she demands, grabbing her daughter’s arm and giving her a small push toward the front of the Ark.

 

“Mom, what’s going on? Is Roan out there? Miller didn’t tell –” Clarke tries.

 

“We’re not sure who’s here or why they’ve come, Clarke. But I want you both inside with everyone else. Kane went to talk with them outside the gates. They’re not coming in, and you’re,” she halts Clarke’s protest before it even leaves her lips with one swift glare, “not going out to meet them. Do I make myself clear?”

 

“Fine,” Clarke snaps back and stomps toward the Ark’s doorway.

 

Bellamy nods once to Abby in acknowledgement and then moves to follow Clarke. If he never had to handle diplomatic relations with the Grounders again, it would be too soon as far as he's concerned.

 

“I mean it, Bellamy!” Abby calls after his retreating back. “No more risks.”

 

They find their friends gathered in the converted mess hall. Everyone looks tense, but Jasper in particular drums the ends of his fingers against the table in an annoying, staccato beat. It isn't normal for the delinquents to be told to sit quietly in the corner like children while the adults handle everything.

 

Raven raises her eyebrows at them suggestively as they walk over, saying, “Too bad your nature walk was cut short.”

 

“Shut up,” Clarke retorts, falling into the seat next to her friend and elbowing her in the ribs under the table. But she can't keep a faint blush from staining her cheeks.

 

“So what’s going on?” Bellamy directs the question at Raven as he sits down across from Clarke.

 

“We don’t know anything yet,” Raven replies. “But once you’ve had ALIE possess your brain and gone through an exorcism, you don’t really get your panties in a twist over a few Grounders with arrows,” she adds, an edge to her voice.

 

“If I recall correctly, you wouldn’t even be alive if we hadn’t fried that chip in your brain and fought off all your attempts to kill us,” Bellamy retorts.

 

"And I'm grateful, ok?" Raven says sincerely. "I just meant the Grounders can't do anything worse to us than we've already been through."

 

But Clarke can still see the vein in Bellamy’s temple pounding. They have never discussed the things Raven said while ALIE possessed her. But some of Raven’s comments about him – about Gina – still rattle around her mind at night long past the time she should be asleep.

 

“All right, all right, enough already!” Monty interrupts, sensing a storm brewing. He wedges himself between Miller and Bellamy, thus forcing more space between Bellamy and Raven. “The Grounders showed up unexpectedly, but that doesn’t mean they’re here to hurt us.”

 

“Dude, the pot is definitely affecting your brain if you think they’re here to invite us to afternoon tea,” Murphy mutters.

 

Clarke sighs, exasperated.

 

“So we really know nothing?” she asks in an attempt to move the conversation to more civil ground.

 

“Really nothing,” Harper supplies with a shrug. “The patrol guards saw a long line of them coming out of the woods a few minutes ago and immediately alerted the Council. Jaha asked us all to stay here until they figure out what’s going on.”

 

“Jaha?” Clarke says in disgust. “Since when does he have the right to ask any of us to do anything? He was helping ALIE!”

 

“Yeah, but the thing is, once you’ve been Chancellor, you know how to lead and make tough choices. So the rest of the Council tends to listen to what you have to say when the shit hits the fan,” Miller says quietly.

 

“Oh, the Council can listen to him,” Murphy retorts. “Listen to him lead them right over a cliff with his next insane scheme.”

 

The delinquents all look up when Kane enters the room, banging the door behind him.

 

“Everyone, I’d like your attention for a minute please,” he calls out.

 

Silence blankets the room. 

 

“The Grounder coalition assembled outside our gates represents people from each of the twelve clans,” he begins. “But they’re not here to harm us. They’re,” he shoots a sideways glance at Abby, who nods slightly, “ _mostly_ grateful that we’ve removed the threat ALIE posed, and they would like to talk to us about creating a new treaty. I don’t know if this will include us becoming the thirteenth clan or not. But rest assured that no decisions will be made on that front without your input. The Council has decided that if we want to move forward in the future with joining the Grounders, we will put that option to our people in a direct vote.”

 

An intense murmuring breaks out across the mess hall at these words. But Kane raises his hand toward the Sky People, and it silences them all within seconds.

 

“For now, know that we’re all safe. The Grounders are not carrying guns, and the knives and arrows they’ve brought will remain outside our gates. I’m doubling the patrol guard around the camp tonight. A representative from each clan will join the Council meeting tomorrow morning to discuss potential diplomatic opportunities. So I’m asking tonight that you all stay within the Ark and make your way to your quarters as quickly as possible. We’ll have more to discuss with everyone tomorrow. If you’re part of the patrol, I ask that you stay behind.”

 

As the scraping of chairs against the titanium floor commences, Clarke says goodbye to Miller, Bryan, and Harper, who begin making their way through the sea of people toward Kane. She briefly wraps her hand around Bellamy’s forearm as he stands, causing him to look back down at her.

 

“Stay safe,” she says.

 

“Safety's my middle name,” he returns with a smile, and then he too is lost in the crowd. Clarke realizes after a moment that she doesn't know what his middle name is, and it leaves her with a sense of unease. 

 

*******

 

She lays in bed restlessly that night, tossing and turning in her blankets. Although the room she shares with Raven has a full sky light that lets in a spectacular view of the stars, it's strange to sleep once more in the Ark’s enclosed spaces and comfortable beds. She'd spent so many months making due with caves, tents, the forest floor, Polis Tower, even the rover.

 

Here on Earth, the Ark feels claustrophobic. The fact that this section of the ship had been her home in space sometimes comforts her. But if she thinks too deeply about it, it hurts her further. Because her father was never again going to turn the corner and rumple her hair good-naturedly. She’d never again walk through the halls to the Chancellor’s apartment and ask Wells to play a game of chess. And although it's never been expressly discussed, she has a feeling that her mother’s frequent stays in Kane’s quarters will become permanent, and then she won't have her old family apartment left to visit, either.

 

Instead, in this new incarnation of Ark life, she gets to enjoy Raven throwing pillows at her from across the room.

 

“Stop moving around so much, and go to sleep, Clarke!” she huffs.

 

In her dream that night, the ghosts of those she's lost come to her in a hazy wood. The fog is so thick she cannot see her boots walking among the bramble. The figures of Wells, her father, Charlotte, Lexa, and Atom never talk; they only stare at her, following her closely. But when she tries to reach out to them, they disappear like smoke.

 

*******

 

After a hurried breakfast of oatmeal and dried berries, Clarke makes her way to the Council meeting room. She's anxious to hear about Bellamy’s patrol. But as she skids around the corner toward the door, it isn't Bellamy she sees waiting in the hallway. It's Roan. 

 

Before she knows it, she's running toward him, eyes wide with shock.

 

“Roan! I’m so glad you’re ok! We thought . . . we thought you were dead. I never got to apologize to you. I’m so sorry they shot you!" She reaches out to hug him, and he curves his left arm around her back after a moment. "I really thought the plan was going to work; if I’d known we were walking into a trap . . .” she trails off and pulls hastily away as a figure comes into view over Roan’s right shoulder. A tall figure dressed all in black with his arms crossed.

 

Bellamy looks mutinous.

 

Roan turns his head to follow her gaze, and when he turns back, he's openly smirking. He takes a step back from her.

 

“Thank you, Clarke. They brought me to the dungeons in the Tower after I was shot, and I was unconscious for a while. When I woke up, I could see everyone wasn’t chipped anymore, but I didn’t know how it happened or when your people returned to Arkadia.”

 

Clarke’s face falls. “Who took care of your wound? Are you all right?” she moves closer to him as if she is about to peel back his shirt and look for the scar.

 

“It’s ok. I’m fine. No lasting harm done,” he says reassuringly, smiling slightly at her concern. “I ran into an Ice Nation couple after the battle, and they convinced a healer to help me. He was Trikru but did a decent enough job.”

 

“Are you sure he did a good job?” Clarke asks skeptically.

 

“Yes,” Roan says. “Anyway, that’s not why we’re here. But, well,” he throws a glance at Kane and Abby talking nearby to a small group Clarke recognizes as Indra’s friends from Trikru, “you’ll hear our ideas soon enough.”

 

Clarke nods eagerly. “Yes, Kane mentioned we might potentially join the twelve clans, but he didn’t say anything about specifics yet.”

 

“Don’t you think he might have a good reason for that?” Bellamy steps into the conversation at last, positioning his body slightly in front of her and glaring at Roan.

 

“Bellamy,” Roan nods at him.

 

He receives a cold glare in return.

 

“Your highness,” Bellamy says curtly.

 

Roan’s eyes move between the two, and Bellamy shifts his weight toward Clarke almost imperceptibly.

 

“ _Of course_ you’d be coming to the meeting, too. Wouldn’t want your guard to be in the dark about our plans,” Roan says, eyes glinting.

 

“Yeah, they tend to let Council members come to the meetings,” Bellamy replies. "Funny how that works."

 

“Hmmm,” Roan seems disinterested, looking at a spot over Bellamy’s shoulder. “Good to know you survived unscathed, Clarke. See you inside.”

 

And with that, he turns and walks away.

 

“Bellamy! Did you have to be so rude? He risked his life for all of us.” Clarke rounds on him with a hiss, motioning him around a corner into an empty portion of the corridor. The main area is filling up with a few dozen people as the time of the meeting draws closer.

 

“Risked his life, give me a break,” Bellamy grunts. “Right after he held you hostage and stabbed me in the leg.”

 

“Which you shot him for!” Clarke reminds him, her hands on her hips.

 

“Whatever,” Bellamy says. “Look, I must’ve missed the Earth Diplomacy 101 class, but you and His Majesty seem to have aced it, so why don’t I just leave everything to you two?”

 

“Maybe that’s a good idea,” Clarke argues back. “You haven’t exactly had the most tact lately. What are you so upset about?”

 

His demeanor changes in a flash. He steps so close to her that she finds her back up against the smooth, silver wall.

 

“I’m not upset about anything, Clarke. But I do have a question for you. Do you have a thing for all your captors?” he mutters roughly into her ear, hand curling around her waist, spreading warmth across her torso.

 

It's infuriating, but simultaneously exhilarating as she glances up into his eyes, which appear almost black. She smells the pine scent of him, this time mixed with wood smoke. 

 

“Don’t be an asshole,” she snaps, shoving him away from her. “If I _had a thing_ for Roan, I’d be having this conversation with him, wouldn’t I?”

 

Before he has a chance to react, she stalks away from him, back into the main hallway where Kane’s voice can be heard inviting everyone to come inside the Council’s meeting room.

 

Clarke is still fuming as she sits down next to her mother with Murphy on her right.

 

After everything they’d been through with the Grounder War, Mount Weather attack, and ALIE invasion, Kane and Abby decided that Bellamy and Clarke’s leadership abilities merited them a seat on the Council. Raven earned a spot, too, a testament to her amazing mechanical and technical abilities.

 

And Murphy, well, Clarke figured that anyone who had traveled into so many ferocious territories with a deranged Jaha deserved a seat at the diplomacy table. Plus, he had helped save all of their lives recently when it mattered most. Jaha sat at the table amongst them as well, right next to Kane. He wasn’t officially part of the Council, more like a consultant. But looking at him and thinking about everything he’d put them all through still nauseated Clarke. She knew there was no point in arguing with Kane or her mother about this though. Part of forging a new society out of nothing meant making due with the talent you already had.

 

So she looks down, and realizes the glass table does nothing to hide her jittery right leg, which she crosses over the left one.

 

“Clarke, is everything all right?” Abby asks quietly, placing a light hand on her daughter’s wrist.

 

“I’m fine, mom” Clarke says.

 

She can feel Bellamy’s eyes on the side of her face from his seat across the room by Raven, but she refuses to look at him. Instead she carefully gazes around the table at the new faces from the clans she has yet to meet, at their braids and animal skins and face paint and feathers. She didn’t expect to see Luna here, and she isn't disappointed. Roan catches her eye though, raising his eyebrows twice rapidly, and she smiles back in spite of herself.

 

“All right,” Abby begins, breaking into her musing. “Before we officially start this meeting and discuss the Grounder’s proposed treaty, is there any important new business that needs to be brought to the Council’s attention?”

 

Now Clarke can't help but look at Bellamy. He nods vigorously at her, and she knows that if she doesn't say something, he's going to. Taking a deep breath, she says, “I have something to share with the Council.”

 

The diverse expressions gazing back at her quickly morph from interest to horror as she recounts what she’s learned from Becca and ALIE.

 

“Come on!” Murphy cries out beside her, looking at her in disbelief. “You’re telling me we made it through everything just to be killed by radiation after all? Why didn’t the air just strangle us all when we got off the dropship?”

 

“John!” Kane says warningly.

 

“Clarke, why didn’t you say something when you came out of the City of Light?” Jaha asks her, his hands in a temple pose on the table before him. He leans toward her slightly, giving her his full attention.

 

Clarke chances a glance toward her mother, who watches her with fear and concern in her eyes. She swallows loudly.

 

“I know I should have said something immediately, and I’m sorry. But I didn’t know if it was true. I thought ALIE might have been trying to distract me from pulling the lever. And,” it sounds so stupid and juvenile to her ears now, “I thought we could all use a week off,” she finishes with a sigh.

 

There is a long pause as everyone processes this new knowledge. Raven’s mouth is still open. Bellamy looks nervous. Finally, it's Kane who speaks after running his hands along his face.

 

“I wished you’d told us immediately, Clarke, and let us decide if this was a threat or not. But what’s done is done. Thank you for telling us today. If what you’ve been told is true, we probably have about five and a half months to reach all seven reactors before they melt down,” he says. He looks around the plain gray room which has little decoration to offer except a few world maps tacked to the walls and a large monitor mounted high above the table. “I hope that our guests will excuse us if we postpone the treaty conversation for a later date as we make this new information the focus of our conversations.”

 

All twelve clan representatives swiftly provide their verbal assent.

 

“Right then,” Kane continues. “So it sounds like our first order of business is figuring out where these seven reactors are and how to shut them down. Raven, if you would please begin the research,” he motions toward the monitor, and she springs from her chair.

 

“I’m on it,” she says.

 

*******

 

The next two hours feel like a particularly brutal Earth Skills class. Kane explains to the Grounders how their ancestors built nuclear power plants all across the globe. He talks about how the plants used heat generated from nuclear fission – more specifically the splitting of uranium atoms - to convert water to steam, which powered generators to produce electricity, which in turn lit up their planet, so their lights could be seen even in space.

 

“The issue is that even after the control rods do their job and stop the fission reaction, the fuel rods – which carry the uranium - are still very, very hot. And the uranium atoms produce radioactive byproducts that also give off a great deal of heat. So the nuclear reactor core produces heat even after the atoms cease splitting,” Kane does his best to make this all as simple as possible, but Clarke knows not everyone grasps his words' meaning.

 

“Anyway, if the rest of the reactor is working like it should be, pumps bring in cool water to carry away the heat from the reactor core. But it’s been so many years that I’m guessing the coolant supply is slowing down significantly. Without a steady coolant supply, the hot reactor core keeps boiling the water surrounding it, turning it to steam, until the fuel rods are not covered with water anymore.”

 

“And then they melt down, releasing the uranium,” supplies Jaha, who had studied the particulars of nuclear war more than any of them through the years. “So hot, radioactive fuel pools at the bottom of whatever is containing the reactor. And it can melt through that vessel – normally it’s made of steel – which then exposes a great deal of radioactivity to the world.”

 

“Not to mention the incredible fireworks show,” Murphy mutters beside Clarke.

 

Clarke shifts in her seat, feeling the same pit of nausea overwhelm her stomach that she’d experienced in the City of Light. Several Council members whisper to each other, while the Grounders eye Jaha warily.

 

“And how do you suggest we defeat an enemy that almost succeeded at annihilating us all once before?” a wiry woman with bright green eyes Clarke remembers from Luna’s rig, asks Jaha. “I hope you’re not going to suggest that we take cover in underground bunkers for another 100 years.”

 

Throughout this conversation, Raven types furiously on a giant keypad connected to a computer Abby pulled out of wall drawers for her to use. All types of images – topography maps, computer codes, videos of nuclear meltdowns, and archived government webpages, spring up on the monitor above their heads as she does so.

 

“I think Ms. Reyes will be best suited to answer your question,” Jaha motions toward Raven.

 

“The seven reactors are located all along the eastern seaboard of what was the United States,” she says at last to her rapt audience. “Based on their distances from us and how fast we can move in a rover each day, I think if we send two teams, one that starts here at the tip of what was Florida moving north, and one starting in the north from this area,” she says, pointing toward what the digital map refers to as New York City, “moving south, we should be able to get to all of them in less than five months. The seventh one is pretty close to us near Ton D.C. actually. But we can,” she trails off as she zooms in on a real-time image of the nearest plant in question provided by one of the many space satellites still roaming the cosmos above them, “save this one for last because it looks like it’s the least volatile.”

 

“How can you tell which are the most volatile?” Abby asks.

 

“Because it looks like our ancestors were so interested in nuclear war, good thinking on their parts, that they made it possible for us to access all the plants built in the Ark’s original member countries from our computer system and see how much coolant is left in them,” she says triumphantly. “From there, I can project out into the future how long it’ll take before the coolant runs out and puts the plants in danger of exploding. The nuclear plants at the farthest edges of the map are the most dangerous.”

 

“Excellent work, Raven,” Kane says kindly. “But how do we flush each reactor with cool water and then shut the whole thing down appropriately?”

 

“That’s a bit trickier,” Raven admits. “But I can do it.”

 

She flicks through digital images and text for each reactor.

 

“There’s a control room in each location,” she says. “We’ll send a team in, and they’ll be able to get me or Monty access to the control room’s panel by entering a few connection codes. Then, I can walk them through how to send in more cool water and shut down the reactors. Simple. Or,” she looks thoughtfully at Kane, “Monty and I can split up and each go with one of the teams to access the control rooms in person.”

 

Abby stars down at Raven’s leg pointedly and firmly says, “Absolutely not. We’re sending trained guards and scientists. If anything were to happen out there, you wouldn’t be able to run. I’m not risking your life if you can do it remotely.”

 

Raven looks furious.

 

“We’re all going to die if this doesn’t go well!” she cries.

 

“You've been a fantastic help, Raven. But no,” Abby's tone is steeled. 

 

Kane sighs, gazing up at the screens. He suddenly appears ten years older.

 

“Are you sure you’ll be able to access the control rooms remotely, Raven?” he asks her.

 

“Yeah, I’m positive. I see that there’s a way to connect right from here,” she says, returning her attention to the screen in front of her keypad. “But I can’t do it unless someone is physically in the control room to make it work from the other side.”

 

Clarke feels a flood of relief rush through her body, and she sees Murphy relax his shoulders beside her. She looks out at Bellamy, but he isn't focused on her. His entire attention is wrapped up in the video overhead, which suddenly shifts to Fukushima exploding in a blaze of red-orange fire as smoke engulfs the sky. _I am become death, destroyer of worlds_ , Clarke thinks to herself. _Hell no, not this time_.

 

“Ok then,” Kane breaks the reverie from the front of the room. “Let’s figure out who’ll be on the teams and what they need to do to prepare to go.”

 

*******

 

After an intensive three-week training, the teams are ready to set out toward the northern and southern horizons respectively. Yet none of the delinquents are among them. In the early dawn light of their departure day, the entire camp gathers to see them off. As they all stand together at the gates, Sky Crew says the old blessing over them in unison:

 

_“In peace, may you leave this shore._

_In love, may you find the next._

_Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground._

_May we meet again.”_

 

“I should be going, too,” Clarke says softly to Bellamy, who stands rigidly beside her, as she tries to inconspicuously wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. “It’s my fault that they don’t have as much time as they should.”

 

Their argument outside the Council room still hovers oppressively in the air between them. But the threat of nuclear explosions and their own imminent demise make fighting about Roan seem petty. Even so, Clarke is still too annoyed to break the ice, and apparently, Bellamy doesn't think he's said or done anything wrong. So they've said nothing about it, preferring to discuss the missions when they've had to speak. She hasn't seen much of him in the last few weeks and assumes his time on guard duty has increased.

 

“What if they find other groups of Grounders? I could have tried to speak with them in their own language at least,” she continues. _Or Octavia could have it she were here,_ she adds silently.

 

Abby had been distraught and angry when her daughter brought up her desire to join a mission a week ago in their old family apartment.

 

*******

 

_“Weren’t the Grounder wars and your time in Mount Weather and the City of Light enough, Clarke? If I’m not sending Raven to go, and she’s responsible for shutting down the damn reactors, do you think I’m sending my own daughter out there to practice her language skills?” Abby questioned in incensed disbelief._

_“But mom, I could be helpful; my friends could be helpful. And it’s all my fault. I should have told you as soon as I knew,” Clarke pleaded._

_“That wouldn’t have made any difference,” Abby replied, softening a little and reaching out to stroke Clarke’s hair across the couch. “You’ve got to stop taking all this blame upon yourself unnecessarily. This is not your fault.”_

_“But we want to go,” Clarke protested. “Monty wants to go, and Raven, and Bellamy.”_

_“And I want you to have a life to enjoy with them after this is done. That can't happen if you keep risking it every chance you get, Clarke. You’re not going. Everything is going to work out, you’ll see. You don’t always have to be part of the action.”_

*******

That had been over a week ago, and Clarke still feels like her mother was being unreasonable. She hadn't dealt with a parental authority figure in her life for a long time, so being back together indefinitely is an adjustment. Sometimes, as grateful as she is that her mother is alive and safe, Abby’s cautious nature and frequent monitoring are more oppressive than the sticky, summer heat.

 

“You don’t even know if other Grounders speak the same language,” Bellamy offers a dose of rationality back in the present. “And your Trigedasleng could use a little work,” he smirks at her.

 

She rolls her eyes at him but steps just the tiniest bit closer. Together, they watch as the rovers turn into little black dots against the tree lines as they begin their quest in search of nuclear power.

 

*******

 

_Almost three months later, the mission mostly turned out to be a success. Raven correctly estimated how long it would take the two teams to each shut off three reactors while moving through dangerous territory, and both rovers returned safely back to Arkadia. Life at camp fell into a new normal, but the distance between Bellamy and Clarke remained palpable. Although they did strive for polite civility, always willing to have conversations about the issues that affected the well-being of their people._

 

Just one reactor remains near Ton D.C., one last obstacle between them and a future that does not include annihilation.

 

Kane calls a Council meeting the morning after the second team arrives home. Bright chatter fills the room and spills out into the hallway as they all congratulate the teams and each other on tackling the problem successfully.

 

But then Raven stares at her computer in perplexed shock, ordering everyone to be quiet as she types like a madwoman.

 

“What is it, Raven?” Kane demands after a minute passes.

 

“My original calculations on the last reactor were wrong,” she says in a rush. “It’s melting down in three days if we don’t cool it off. It’s decaying at a record rate. I’m not sure why. It didn’t look nearly this bad a week ago when I last checked it. But now it’s a ticking time bomb.”

 

“Tick, tick, tick, boom,” Murphy supplies helpfully from the corner. “Looks like we’re going to be served up over-easy after all.”

 

“It’s all right,” Kane says loudly, moving behind Raven and punching the keypad over her shoulder, watching as the results flash across the monitor. “Our team can be there in half a day, turn it off within a few hours, and since Raven’s already done this six times before, be back by the end of day two. It’s going to be fine.” He sounds confident.

 

“Which team will we send? We have to act fast,” Abby asks the room at large.

 

“I’m volunteering to be the person who unlocks the control room for Raven,” Bellamy speaks up out of nowhere.

 

There is thick silence, and then –

 

“No!” Clarke is standing beside her seat before she realizes it.

 

“It’s my responsibility to help end this nightmare for our people,” his face is resolute. “I sat on the information that Becca and ALIE told Clarke for a week after she went into the City of Light, and that risked all our lives.”

 

A murmur of surprise runs around the room, causing Clarke to clench her teeth as many pairs of eyes fall upon her. _Shut up, Bellamy_ , she urges in her head. Outwardly, only her nostrils flare. 

 

“I should have told the Council immediately,” he continues. “So I’m asking to be part of shutting that last reactor down.”

 

“You haven’t been through the trainings,” Clarke flings the words across the table at him like a bomb.

 

“Yes, I have. I sat in on almost every single one of them after Raven explained what was going on just in case they ever needed more help.”

 

_Of course he had. Bellamy was always thinking about their people. While I was pouting on the couch with my mother like a temperamental teenager, he was taking action and actually preparing to save us all. Have I been that caught up in my own head that I didn’t notice where he was spending his time?_

 

“Then I'm going, too,” she says sternly.

 

He looks at her with a serious earnestness that tears at her insides.

 

“No, you’re not, Clarke.”

 

“Yes, I am!”

 

“Don’t be stupid. They’ll need you here if anyone gets hurt. You’re a doctor!”

 

“Arkadia has other medics to help out. Besides, I haven’t even finished my training.”

 

Murphy follows the back-and-forth volleys intently. It's like he's viewing that old-fashioned tennis tournament called Wimbledon the Council once let them watch on the Ark during a Unity Day celebration.

 

Abby's forehead wrinkles aggressively, but for once, she says nothing.

 

It's Jaha who speaks up. 

 

“It’s too dangerous, Clarke. We need to send our trained teams to handle this. Bellamy’s served as a guard for months. He’s a fighter. He can handle himself if he really wants to go.”

 

“Jaha’s right. I don’t want you going into this sort of situation unprepared,” Abby agrees.

 

“Well if Bellamy’s going, I’m definitely going,” Raven pipes up from her seat. “And I know Miller will want to come, too.”

 

Nobody objects to this statement.

 

Clarke is so tired of being treated like a delicate, antique china plate that might break at any moment. Since they’d returned to Arkadia, people tiptoe around her like they fear her trip to the City of Light has cost her a chunk of her brain. Like she doesn’t have the strength, intelligence, or nerve to handle anything more serious than doing a few butterfly stitches or applying a warm compress.

 

“So Raven and Miller can go?” her voice rises in her anger as she slams her palm onto the tabletop. “They’re more important to this camp than I am, and they get to risk their lives! No, that’s not fair. I’m going,” she says, looking straight into Bellamy’s eyes. She's not sure if he'll back her up or shoot her down. But she catches a flicker of something there: respect tinged with fire.

 

Kane knows he's lost control of the room. He turns toward Abby who is reaching out for her daughter but being swatted away. He knows how much she wants to keep Clarke safe after everything they've been through, has heard her whispered fears before the dawn when she’s slept in his bed. Yet there is no other option. He’ll have to appeal to Bellamy’s desire to protect Clarke. He is the only one whose opinion she may actually listen to.

 

Kane glances across the circular table at the young man he’s come to view as a sort of surrogate son, seeking his eyes.

 

“Bellamy . . . ” he lets the name linger in the air entreatingly. “Consider the risks.”

 

Bellamy doesn't flinch.

 

“We’re not in space anymore. All our lives matter on the ground,” he says after a long pause. “You heard Clarke. We’re going together.”

 

And everyone knows it is done. Clarke’s face breaks into a radiant smile, and his own expression softens. He has a feeling he's been forgiven.  

*******

Clarke is back in the hazy woods, stepping over upturned logs and fallen branches. She can see Bellamy flitting between the trees, his gun strapped across his shoulder. But she can’t get any closer to him; he recedes farther and farther into the darkness no matter how fast she runs until . . .

 

He is being blown sky high beside the dropship, as Clarke is forced to close the door. The scene dissolves in a flash of fire, and he’s hanging upside down, nearly dead and so, so pale, being drained of his blood by the Mountain Men. As she moves toward him, desperate to untie him, a glass door appears out of nowhere in front of her, and he’s on the other side of it, chained to the wall and losing consciousness as the chamber sucks out the oxygen. Emerson's hands encircle her neck, her vision grows spotty, and then she awakens in the Throne Room in Polis, where he’s standing before her being stabbed mercilessly by her mother. ALIE Abby is cackling in delight as the crimson blood runs down his bare chest, and Clarke is screaming, “No, no, please! Not him! Take me! Take me instead!”

 

Clarke’s covered in sweat as she shoots up in bed, the words dying on her lips when she sees Raven’s unsurprised face glinting in the moonlight across from her.

 

“Why don’t you just go to him?” she asks into the quiet of the room. "I saw him when you weren't here, Clarke. He was a wreck."

 

She shakes her head stubbornly. 

 

"You should go. He was so worried about you. And you’re just as worried about him."

 

The words send cracks into Clarke's heart, and then she has to go because her pulse is hammering, and she’s terrified for him although there’s no reason to be because right now he’s safe in his bed.

 

She slips out of their room in the spare black T-shirt and shorts set she found in the infirmary and creeps down several winding hallways until she reaches his door. She’s never been inside before, and she knocks tentatively several times.

 

Bellamy answers wearing a blue undershirt, gray Ark-issued sleep pants, tousled hair, and a bleary expression. He’s rubbing one foot against his leg and looking at her in confusion.

 

“Clarke? What is it? What’s wrong?”

 

 _Oh my God, this was such a stupid idea. He’s fine. Obviously, he’s fine. I didn’t even think about how somebody might be in there with him._ The thought floods her veins with ice, but she doesn’t have the nerve to look past him into his bedroom _._

 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have woken you up. It’s nothing. Go back to sleep. I’m sorry.” She stumbles over the words and turns away.

 

His hand closes easily around her forearm, and he rubs his thumb into it in small circles, turning her back to him slowly.

 

“Clarke? You can tell me. What is it?” His voice is low and soothing and melodic; she’s about to crumble, and she hates herself for it. Hates that she’s going to be weak when she just made a big production out of how strong she was earlier.

 

She takes one deep breath and then hurls the words out of her lungs. “I keep seeing you dead in my dreams!” It's like a dam bursts.

 

He pulls her against him and closes the door with a soft click, rubbing her back lightly as she cries.

 

“I’m fine. I’m right here. Nothing is going to happen to me.”

 

“I don’t want you to go.”

 

She can’t believe she’s said it aloud, but it’s the truth.

 

“I don’t want you to go, either, but that’s not stopping you, is it?” he says teasingly into the top of her head. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “So we’re going together, right?”

 

She nods, and he rubs up and down her arms slowly. She doesn’t know how much time passes because she’s lost in the feel of him, in the strength and warmth surrounding her. In the sensation of the best kind of goose bumps.

 

“Do you feel better?” he finally asks.

 

“Yeah, I guess so.”

 

“All right, then you should probably get some sleep. Big day tomorrow,” he looks at her expectantly, squashing the invitation bubbling up inside him down, far down, where it can’t sabotage him.

 

But Clarke says it for him.

 

“Can I stay here tonight?”

 

“Ummm, yeah, sure, if you want to.”

 

_This cannot be real. Cannot. Be. Real._

 

He does his best to move slowly and smoothly, but his heart just kicks up a few notches. He straightens up his pillows and fluffs out his blankets, which were twisted a bit on the single bed in the corner of his room. Finally satisfied, he slides into the bed, turning on his side and looks up at her - half expecting her to have vanished as a figment of his imagination - holding his covers back.

 

She’s still there, chewing on her lip. Moonlight spills into the room suddenly from the sky light above, and her hair is radiant, shimmering, mesmerizing him. She looks like a picture of a mermaid sitting on a sea rock in an ocean cove he found in an old book as a kid. She hesitates for a moment, like she might turn to the door and leave, but then she climbs into bed and slides backward until her shoulder hits his chest, and she is partly sharing his pillow.

 

He drapes his right arm very lightly around her, not sure what else to do with it at this angle. He remembers how she asked him to stay with her when she needed to rest after coming out of the City of Light. Back then she still wanted him around; she said having him there helped her sleep. She takes his hand and interlocks her fingers with his own, bringing his arm down around her waist.

 

“Tighter,” she whispers, and he pulls her in close to him. She smiles slightly into the pillow. She can't see it, but the faint trace of a smile passes over his lips, too as he settles down beside her. 

 

A few minutes later, her even breathing lulls him to sleep.

 

But in the morning when he wakes, she’s already gone.


	4. Fantastic Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The delinquents do their best to take on the last nuclear reactor. But no one promised saving the world would be easy.

_“It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.” ~Gabriel García Márquez_

Clarke quietly slides back into her room, shutting the door softly behind her. Raven is still asleep as she begins packing up her things. Their shared space feels full of a tranquility it lacked the night before as Clarke watches a few tree branches sway through the skylight.

 

But then several loud voices and heavy footsteps break the spell, and Raven rolls over, rubbing her eyes.

 

“Mission accomplished?” she asks in a cutesy voice.

 

“We just talked, Raven. But yes, I’m glad I went, so thank you,” Clarke replies pointedly, shutting down the conversation. Or so she thinks.

 

“Uuuugggh!” Raven groans loudly into her pillow, turning against the wall. “Pathetic. The two of you are pathetic. I don’t know why it’s so hard to just say –”

 

A knock at the door interrupts her diatribe.

 

“Mom!” Clarke cries out in surprise as she opens the door.

 

“Hi, honey. Can we talk for a minute?”

 

“Sure,” Clarke pulls the door open more fully.

 

“I’m getting out of your way. Let me just grab my stuff, and I’ll head to the shower,” Raven says, yanking clothes out randomly from the messy pile under her bed and rolling her bath products up in them.

 

When she leaves, Abby sits down on Clarke’s blankets, motioning her daughter to sit down beside her. Clarke is suddenly very glad she spent at least part of the night in her own rumpled bed.

 

“Clarke, I know I’ve been frustrating you lately, and I apologize,” Abby begins, taking a deep breath. “You’re an adult now, and sometimes I forget that.”

 

Clarke smiles a little, but her lips remain pressed together in a tight line.

 

Abby sighs, reaching out to take her daughter’s hand. “But you’ve proven over and over again how capable you are of helping us all survive. You’re a talented healer, a strong leader, a fierce friend, and a savvy diplomat." 

 

“Thanks, mom,” Clarke replies quietly, the surprise evident in her voice.

 

“Don't thank me yet, sweetheart. I knew all of that, but I still wanted to protect you, even if it wasn’t rational.”

 

Abby looks up to the ceiling, avoiding her daughter’s intense gaze. Clarke waits, motionless. The next words come in a rush.

 

“It’s just that you and your friends have been shouldering so much of the burden here, and we, well, I mean the adults should have done so much more to help you,” the tears almost swim over her eyelids. “We could have been sending you to your deaths from the start on that dropship, Clarke. I was sick over it! And then we finally get everyone else down here and then Mount Weather happened. And before I could even process it all, you left. I didn’t know where you were for months. You don’t know what that did to me,” she cups Clarke’s cheek. Several tears stream down her face in straight, neat paths, only jutting off to the side when they reach the laugh lines around her mouth.

 

Clarke senses the moisture prickling the back of her own eyes. “Mom, I’m sorry I left. I –”

 

“Shhh,” Abby hushes her at once, wrapping her arm around Clarke’s shoulder and pulling her into her chest. “I already lost your father. And I was distraught when you left camp. You have to understand that when I finally saw you again, I was possessed and could have seriously injured you or . . . killed you. That thought will never stop haunting me."

 

She runs her fingers lightly over the neckline of Clarke’s shirt, pulling it down to see the thick scars below. The tears fall freely now. “It all would have been my fault. And Kane could have killed Bellamy. He was strangling him; he was turning blue . . . I’m so, so sorry! I know I'm horrible! A mother is supposed to protect her children, no matter what."

 

Clarke can't bear to allow either image of torture to fill her mind. She squeezes her eyes shut.

 

“That’s why I’ve been so difficult since we got back to Arkadia, honey,” Abby presses on. “I just can’t lose you again! We’ve both lost too much.”

 

“Mom, it’s ok, really,” Clarke says nodding, her vibrant blue eyes locked on her mother’s hazel ones. She wraps her arm around Abby’s shaking frame. “You didn’t know what you were doing in that Throne Room. I’ve already forgiven you . . . completely. I love you.”

 

Abby shudders, but her sobbing slows.

 

“I should have fought harder,” she says to the hands clasped tightly around an old shirt Clarke passes her to wipe away some of the tears. “But I’m going to now,” she adds, looking up at her daughter again, her face resolute. “I admire your strength, Clarke. And I know you wanted to do the right thing for everyone by telling the Council about the reactors. But I do have one question.”

 

Surprised, Clarke slides backward a little on the bed.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Why did you wait a week?” the words tumble out of Abby’s mouth like pieces of torn thread, already frayed and damaged. Clarke tries not to read too much judgment into them. She wonders if her mother really wants the truth. 

 

She takes a deep breath. “I thought about dad and the oxygen levels on the Ark. First I figured he would want me to say something to save everyone, and that’s why I told Bellamy as soon as I left the City of Light,” she pauses for several seconds. The silence lengthens between them. “But then I second-guessed it. If we only had six months to live, maybe everyone would just want to . . . I don’t know . . . be happy? Ignorance is bliss, right? We could just drink moonshine and watch the sunsets.”

 

Abby laughs outright for what seems like the first time in weeks. “Oh, baby! That would have been too simple an answer for you.”

 

Clarke’s teeth gleam as she smiles. “Yeah, maybe,” she concedes. “But I was worried about chaos breaking out all over again if everyone thought the end was really here. I knew we’d try to survive, however we could. But I . . . I--”

 

“What, Clarke?”

 

“I didn’t know if I could keep fighting. If I deserved another chance at all this,” her face falls into her hands.

 

Abby nods slowly, finally understanding and fully heartbroken. Her sweet daughter’s face used to glow when her patients became well on the Ark. Her colorful sketches of butterflies and rainforests unlocked viewers’ imaginations. But now she’s been transformed into a battle-scarred woman who's seen and done much more than she should have. Abby inwardly recoils when she thinks of how she wasn’t even on the same planet to witness this shift in her only child. She wants peace for Clarke, and rest, and, most of all, the undeliverable gift of returning to her the years of adolescence she's lost. 

 

“You deserve another chance at life on Earth, Clarke,” Abby whispers into her daughter's ear, gently stroking her hair. “I have hope we’re going to get out of this mess. I want a beautiful life for you, and I think you can have it." 

 

Clarke breaths in the faint scent of lilies clinging to her mother for as long as she can. Then they both look up at the old wooden clock on the wall, ticking softly. “It’s time for you to go,” Abby murmurs.

 

*******

 

“The seat’s not going to bite you, and neither am I,” Bellamy says from his spot behind the wheel of the rover.

 

Clarke suddenly finds the empty black leather passenger seat intimidating as she stands on the ground eyeing it warily. She is used to sitting beside Bellamy on their drives; nobody else even tries to call shotgun anymore. But something about choosing to sit here today feels like acknowledging they crossed a line in their relationship last night. She bites her lip.

 

“Seriously, Clarke. We’ve got a reactor to destroy. Nobody sits there but you, so get in!” Bellamy tries again a bit more angrily, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

 

_Then again, maybe not._

 

She hoists herself up into the seat, slamming the door behind her.

 

“All right, so what do we got?” Bellamy looks into his rearview mirror as he begins to speed out of the gates. Miller, Bryan, Monty, Harper, Jasper, and Raven sit along the walls of the rover waving at the people who have woken up early enough to see them off.

 

“Ok, so the most important thing to note is our timeframe,” Monty says, pulling out his tablet once Arkadia disappears into the distance. “Raven calculated that we had 72 hours to shut this baby down from yesterday, which was Monday at noon. That means we have until Thursday at noon. It’s already,” he glances down at his watch, “6 a.m. on Tuesday morning. So we have exactly 54 hours left before the nuclear apocalypse, part two since we lost time yesterday preparing to go,” he pauses for a breath, having talked in a huge rush.

 

“But remember everyone,” he gazes around the rover at them all, wide-eyed, raising his arms and wiggling his fingers in what he must believe is an ominous manner. “Even if we fail, we have the best seats in the house for the end of the world,” he finishes by dramatically lowering his voice and chuckling darkly.

 

“Our little ray of sunshine,” Miller jokes, hitting him lightly on the back of the head.

 

“Our little doomsayer,” Raven croons.

 

“The facts are the facts, man,” Monty shrugs.

 

“What’s really most important to remember is that, if for some reason we can’t get this thing to shut down, we need to be _out of there_ by 6 p.m. Wednesday at the latest,” Raven says, suddenly serious. “Even if the drive back takes us the full 12 hours, we’ll have six hours left when we get back here to warn everyone that the reactor’s going to explode. That’s enough time to get them and all our supplies to what’s left of Mount Weather using the rovers." 

 

They are all silent. This was the plan Kane and Abby shared with them yesterday during their intensive training. If they failed, their people would wait out this next nuclear disaster, only this time on the ground. They would not forsake the Earth again. For better or worse, it was their home now.

 

Mount Weather existed deep enough underground that its four bottom-most levels, which included the kitchens, medical stations, and major living areas, survived the most recent attack. With its weather-proof doors, they could survive there for years if they needed to. The scientists told Kane it could take anywhere from six to ten years to return to the Earth’s surface since they would be located so close to the blast. Yet it was the best they could do.

 

But the thought of remaining stuck in the windowless tomb which still haunts her nightmares makes Clarke sick. Being trapped underground sounds so much worse even than being locked in the Sky Box.

 

She glances over at Bellamy, whose clenched jaw tells her he's thinking along the same lines. She knows he doesn't want to be held prisoner in the place where Gina died. Clarke reaches out and touches his arm, a feather-light touch that causes him to release the breath he’s been holding. She moves her arm away hurriedly when his eyes connect with hers. 

 

“How long before we get there again?” Clarke asks, turning around in her seat. She can see Raven gazing too intently at her but ignores her friend.

 

“If everything goes according to plan, we can be there by about 6 p.m., set up camp for the night, and spend the day tomorrow cooling off the reactor and shutting it down,” Monty answers.

 

“But when does anything ever go according to plan for us?” Harper asks, intertwining her fingers with Monty’s.

 

“Guys, I can’t take so much positivity at once!” Bellamy jokes unexpectedly. “Allow me to lighten the mood.” He punches a few buttons on the complex sound system Monty recently installed until a strong, raucous beat fills the car.

 

“ _Watch out, you might get what you’re after / Cool babies, strange but not a stranger,”_ he begins to sing, looking over at Clarke, his face brighter. She rolls her eyes but smiles back, then leans her head against her seat and sings along. The others quickly join in. Their harmony is all off, but, then again, as the sun rises out of the clouds to the east, it's sort of perfect, too. She sighs and let the muscles in her back and shoulders relax.

 

“Really?” Raven yells from the back. “Your taste in music is ridiculous.”

 

“What? This is a crowd pleaser! You know you love it, Reyes,” Bellamy shouts.

 

And soon Raven does seem to love it and begins to sing along, “ _Three hundred sixty five degrees / burning down the house_.”

 

*******

Nothing goes according to plan.

 

They discover a wide, rushing river full of huge, pointy rocks running the entire length of the area surrounding the last nuclear reactor when they arrive at the site around 5 p.m.

 

It's hot in the rover, even with the windows rolled down, and Clarke’s thin T-shirt sticks to the back of her seat. Everyone is cranky. They are rationing their water for the trip back, so at first the river seems like a welcome relief when they see healthy rainbow-colored fish scales gleaming along the fast current in the afternoon light. They can drink from this river, at least.

 

But they can’t get around it. The bridge Kane promised would get them across it, the one clearly marked on their digital maps, simply doesn't exist. They drive for miles alongside the river looking for it to no avail. It takes them an extra three hours to follow its winding flow all the way north, until it finally curves south again. There they find a partly dilapidated, rusty green bridge. Its hangings sway a bit in the wind.

 

“Can the bridge bear the weight of the rover?” Monty questions nervously, looking out the window at the churning water below. White foam gushes forth from the top of the waves every time they slam into the rocks. 

 

“Only one way to find out,” Miller replies. “But this used to be used for all types of vehicles, so we should be fine.”

 

“Everyone ready?” Bellamy asks, turning around to look at his friends. “We’re running out of time.”

 

“Let’s roll,” Jasper says. "Nothing like the threat of danger to make you feel alive." 

 

Clarke holds her breath and stares straight ahead.

 

*******

 

The nuclear plant comes into view around 9:30 p.m. It boasts not only the old-fashioned smokestacks, but also a gleaming, metallic building complete with a pointed glass dome that glints in the moonlight. Too tired to appreciate the architectural splendor, they all barely talk as they set up a small campfire, warm up the wild boar, carrot, and onion rations they’ve brought, and unpack a few tents and sleeping bags.

 

Miller agrees to take the first watch and heads off toward the fields along the southwest side of the plant.

 

Clarke's cleaning her face with a dampened cloth, removing the grimy feeling rover trips always bring with them, when she hears someone approaching her tent. Bellamy crouches down in front of it. She can tell it's him from his shadowy profile against the canvas.

 

“Clarke? You going to be ok tonight?” comes his deep voice.

 

Her heartbeat quickens, and she feels heat rush to her face as her mind slips back to the previous night. 

 

“Yeah, sure, I’m fine!” she chirps, cringing at how high-pitched her voice sounds. “Raven and Harper are staying with me. They just went down to the river to get some more fresh water.”

 

“Oh, ok. Shout if you need anything.” 

 

The shadow grows taller and leaner as he stands up, and Clarke is left with nothing to listen to but his boots crunching into the rocks and branches scattered along the ground. It's incredibly frustrating to admit it, but she wishes she could follow him to his tent, if only to have his melodic voice reassure her that everything will be all right before she drifts off to sleep.  

 

She curls up on her side, knowing she's settling in for a restless night under the stars. 

 

*******

Raven’s words echo in Clarke’s head as she walks beside Bellamy across the long grass toward the power plant in the misty grey, pre-dawn morning. Miller, Bryan, and Harper stay several steps behind them in a triangle formation. “ _Remember, we absolutely have to be out of here by 6 p.m. today. We lost three hours because of the river. So if worse comes to worst and our plan doesn’t work, we need enough time to get back to warn our people.”_

 

Raven Monty, and Jasper set up a technology station back in the rover, about a quarter mile from the entryway of the power plant. They hook up tablets and computers, with wires crisscrossing around their bodies and connecting to the rover’s main power source. Everything seemed immersed in a neon green and black digital glow that hurt Clarke’s eyes when she saw it for the first time. The screens beeped and whirred and buzzed in ways that made no sense to her. But Raven promised this was the key to breaking into both the main and control room doors. From there, Bellamy would be able to easily connect the power plant’s system to the server, giving them access to the means of cooling off the power plant and officially shutting it down.

 

The sky resembles a painter’s rich palette of color as Harper taps out a complicated code on the silver keypad screwed into the doorframe. Clarke looks down at her watch. 8:09 a.m. They have less than seven hours. At last, the door finally clicks open. 

 

“I’ll come in with you!” Monty calls out to Bellamy from the field. “Or Raven will. You don’t have to go in alone.”

 

“No, you stay out here. I'll be fine," Bellamy sounds determined. “In case anything goes wrong, it’s better if there’s only one person in there.”

 

He glances down at Clarke, who is already looking up into his face. She nods slowly at him in a show of support. Although she hates his plan, she knows there is no point in insisting on him changing his mind and allowing her to come with him. She’d already tried multiple times over breakfast.

 

“So this is it, the apocalypse. It doesn’t seem that bad from up close,” he says flippantly. “It’s a nice enough place to die.”

 

“Don’t talk like an idiot,” she whispers, squeezing his forearm briefly. “You're going to be fine.”

 

"Mmm," he nods in what he must imagine to be a nonchalant way. She thinks she notices a flicker of panic light up his eyes though. "See you on the other side, Princess." 

 

She watches him walk away from her down a long, narrow beige hallway, shoulders squared. She watches him until he turns left in search of the control room, walkie-talkie in hand. He never looks back, but she realizes she expected him to. 

 

_I should have hugged him, held him, insisted I go, too._

 

A wave of nausea roils in her stomach, presses against her throat.  

*******

“I’m in,” comes Bellamy’s voice over the walkie-talkie, and Clarke exhales in relief, momentarily closing her eyes in a prayer of thanks. She hears the swoosh of a door sliding into place and knows he's inside the control room.

 

Next to her, Raven provides him with complicated instructions to connect the two systems. They go through a long series of steps, of back-and-forth comments that make little sense to Clarke. After about an hour, a bright orange square appears on Monty's screen, and he clicks it triumphantly. Jasper leans over to view the successful process from his perch on the rover's bench. 

 

“We’re hooked up! Nice work, Bellamy!” he yells out.

 

It takes another hour before Monty processes the correct code to use to send the cool water rushing in to flush out the reactor. With her back pressed up against the rover’s interior wall, Clarke looks down at her watch. 10:12 a.m. Harper, Bryan, and Miller diligently patrol the area, but no threats – from Grounders or wild animals – appear. Occasionally, Harper checks in with Clarke to say something reassuring, but it only makes her feel light-headed, like this is some sort of out-of-body experience.

 

She listens to Raven pound away at her keyboard feverishly. The tech guru curses frequently as different combination codes to shut down the reactor prove futile. Clarke’s stomach twists itself into a larger and larger knot each time Raven beats her fist against the side of the rover in frustration. Then, around noon, a gleam of victory brightens her eyes.

 

“Bellamy! I think I’ve got the right combination. You ready at the keypad?”

 

“I’ve been ready. Go ahead." 

 

She reads out a series of numbers, strange words, and buttons that need to be pushed simultaneously.

 

“Got it,” Bellamy says, when Raven finishes speaking.

 

Clarke stares hard at the walkie-talkie in Raven's hand, willing his voice to flood out of it. But the only thing that bursts forth is unexpected blaring of an alarm.

 

“What the hell’s going on?” Bryan yells as he comes jogging over to them from his patrol post.

 

“Oh my God, Oh my God, I screwed it up!” Raven’s eyes are huge as her eyes lock on her screen. 

 

Clarke snatches up her walkie-talkie.

 

“Bellamy? Can you hear me? What’s going on?” she demands.

 

“I’m here, Clarke. I just . . . I can’t . . .” he huffs.

 

“What? You can’t what?” she shouts over the racket.

 

“I can’t open the door to the control room. I can’t get out.”

 

“The internal doors are all locking,” Raven says, her face a mask of fear. “The plant is preparing to self-detonate. There’s a new countdown . . .hold on." She resumes slamming her fingers into her keypad, her eyes racing left to right as she scans the codes for meaning. "We've got two hours. The plant’s exploding at 2 p.m.!” she points in horror at the gleaming digital clock now prominent on her screen.

 

*******

Clarke’s feet fly over the ground. She's holding her hands to her ears, dashing inside the building and turning left, then sprinting toward a glass door, behind which she knows from poring over blueprints lies the steel door to the control room.

 

She pounds her fists desperately against the glass barrier, which is at least six inches thick, yanking on a door handle that remains stubbornly stuck. Her screams ricochet around the space until her throat feels raw.

 

“We didn’t get this far for you to die, Bellamy!” she shouts into her walkie-talkie just as the sirens switch to a much lower-pitched buzzing. “I’m going to get you out of there!”

 

Suddenly, strong arms encircle her waist, dragging her backward, despite her best efforts to elbow whomever it is in the stomach. She hears a squelching noise, like boots stomping through mud, and knows she's made some sort of impact on her captor. The arms slacken their grip, and she races back to the glass door and its slippery, marble keypad.

 

“What numbers do I have to hit, Raven?” she bellows out, staring back at Miller, who catches his breath against a wall.

 

No answer comes.

 

“Raven! RAVEN! Do something!” she screams into the walkie-talkie. “Please,” she adds under her breath. “Or Bellamy’s going to die.”

*******

“Bellamy, stay calm. I’m working as fast as I can,” comes Raven’s voice from the black rectangular box Miller's squeezing in a vice grip. It's Clarke’s only lifeline to her co-leader, her best friend. “I need to reverse this code to open up the doors. And then Monty and I can figure out how to shut the reactor down. He’s working on that part." 

 

“We need another way to get him out,” Clarke says to Miller, when he can stand back up to his full height after her attack.

 

He nods at her, grimacing slightly.

 

“There’s a glass dome over the control room area,” Bryan speaks up, having just raced inside after them. “I noticed it last night.”

 

A flash of hope floats through Clarke’s body. “We’ll break it. We’ll pull him out that way, somehow, with rope, or something else, I don’t know . . . we have to go, now, fast,” she stammers.

 

She rips the walkie-talkie out of a surprised Miller's hand. 

 

“Bellamy? Do you hear me?” she tries to keep her voice steady as she pushes the button on the homemade device. “I am _not_ going to leave you. We’re coming for you.”

 

“Clarke, it’s too dangerous,” he responds after a few seconds. “You have to get out. You heard Raven. Two hours. You all need to drive, go on. You can’t be within fifty miles of the blast." He sounds breathless like he’s been exerting himself. “I can’t physically get the door open,” he admits, confirming her fears. “You have to leave me.”

 

“Raven’s going to shut this thing down. You’re going to be fine. We’re getting you out!” Clarke shoots back decisively. “Hang on. And keep away from the glass dome area above you,” she adds as she steps back out into the sunlight. Bryan was right – the dome is large and fairly impressive. “We’re coming in that way.”

 

*******

"Bryan! Can you bring the fold-up ladder we packed over here now please? And a long rope?” Miller requests.

 

Clarke looks at her watch again. Seven minutes have passed. As soon as Bryan arrives with Harper, carrying the ladder like a bridge between them, Clarke climbs it and runs across the roof in a blur. She almost trips on debris scattered across the surface before her eyes lock onto the vast, glass circular structure jutting out over the center of the power plant.

 

Bellamy stares up at her through the glass ceiling, looking small and far away.

 

“Back up, Bellamy. As far back as you can go,” she instructs through the walkie-talkie, pushing out her arms for visual emphasis.

 

He steps into the shadowy area of the control room, against its far wall. His face is impossible to read. She motions Harper, Miller, and Bryan to step forward.

 

“Everyone aim your gun at that triangular piece of glass in the far right corner,” Clarke says much more calmly than she feels. “If we weaken the glass enough, we can smash through it and create a hole to pull him up through.”

 

Another eight minutes slip by. 

 

Their gunfire slices into the glass, creating several, decent-sized holes.

 

“Again,” Bryan says after examining the area.

 

They keep shooting until Miller can confidently smash his boot into the windowpane and form an opening large enough for Bellamy to fit through.

 

“All right, Bellamy, I’m sending down the rope!” Clarke calls through the gap. He steps forward and catches it with no problem, beginning to secure it around his waist. _How did that eat up another five minutes?_ she thinks, panic beginning to set in.

 

Miller braces his right boot against the base of the glass dome, which is made of brick, and shouts down to his friend.

 

“We’re going to get you out, man! But you’ve got to scale the wall. It’s a good 40 feet.”

 

Clarke stands behind Miller, while Bryan and then Harper fall into place behind her.

 

“Pull!” Miller yells.

 

They do, and Bellamy attempts to gain traction against the wall to hoist himself up. He manages to climb halfway up before the rope starts to fray.

 

“It’s too much weight! The rope’s not made for this. Go, please. Save yourselves,” he calls up, as his legs slam back into the ground.

 

He sees Clarke’s golden hair flutter over the edge of the dome.

 

“I’m not leaving you. How many times do I have to say it?” she insists. “If this is the end for you, it’s the end for me, too. Together, remember?”

 

He smiles a little, but now, standing over the edge of the broken glass, she can see the resignation settling in across his features. Her mind jumps back in time to his eyes gazing into her own from behind air-tight Ark doors as oxygen evaporated from the chamber Emerson forced him into. He was always so willing to die for the people he cared about, for the people he loved, for her.

 

She throws down her backpack violently, and unzipping it, tosses things out haphazardly. Her fingers grasp onto a cord she took from Polis. The Grounders used it as a sort of zip line across dangerous valleys or deep bodies of water. She lets in unravel until its edge is at his feet.

 

“Tie that tightly though your belt, and let’s get you out of here,” she calls down to him, digging her nails into her arm to keep any stray tears from falling.

 

He is five feet off the ground, then ten. He does his best to climb up the side of the wall, until the toes of his boots find traction against the steel doorframe, and he can rest on it for a moment.

 

In her haste to help pull him up, Clarke’s boot accidently dislodges a stray, large piece of glass from the hole they created. It tumbles through the air, slicing across his shoulder near his collarbone before he can try to swing out of the way. She looks on horrified as too much maroon blood oozes out of the wound. She knows, even at this distance, that it's a deep cut. 

 

 _Oh my God. I could have punctured his neck with glass falling from this height!_ Sickening dread pumps through her blood.

 

“Bellamy! I'm so sorry! Are you ok?”

 

“I'm all right. I’m still alive,” he grunts. “Can’t you just let the radiation get me, Clarke? It’d be easier.”

 

"Not a chance in hell," Clarke shoots back, relieved he is still able to joke, however darkly. The cord cuts into her fingers, leaving deep welt marks. Her back strains with the exertion of pulling, but every time another small section of the cord comes into view over the edge of the dome, it feels like a victory. "I'm not losing you."

 

“Pull, harder everyone! Pull!” Clarke cries out to the three friends behind her. She assumes his shoulder is killing him and doesn't know if he can still use it to help him reach the top.

 

“Guys!” Jasper's voice cuts across their groans. “We're going to stay on the line with you, ok? But you have ten minutes to get back to the rover to make sure we can drive far enough away from this reactor if we can’t shut it down. Hurry!" 

 

“We’re,” Harper puffs out. “Going as fast as we can!”

 

Clarke sighs in relief when Bellamy’s mop of dark, messy curls comes within eight feet of the top ledge. But then the rope grows taut and tense again, and she fears it might snap. _He can’t survive that fall._

 

“Come on, Bellamy! Climb! Please!” she begs.

 

Miller grabs the cord in front of her hands and yanks it hand over fist until Bellamy’s tanned fingers finally grip the side of the dome. Bryan rushes forward to aid Miller in hauling him up.

 

He collapses along the side of the dome, panting heavily and clutching his shoulder. Clarke runs forward to push the glass shards away from his body. She bends down beside him, gazing desperately into his face.

 

"You ok?" she asks, voice high-pitched and anxious. Her hand wraps around the bicep of his good arm, and she notes that his breathing is slowly returning to normal. But there's blood seeping through his jacket all the same.

 

"Can't help but survive," he says quietly, his breath tickling her face. "Thanks to you."

 

Elation, pure elation, courses through her system. It feels like a bubbly drink fizzing out from her core into the farthest reaches of her fingertips and toes. She's spinning, giddy even.

 

She wants more than anything to wrap her arms around him and lay there on the roof, never letting him go. But he's injured, and they need to go. Plus, everyone's watching her; she is suddenly aware of their eyes on her back.

 

And then Raven’s voice screams at them, “You’ve got four and a half minutes! You’ve got to get out of there! MOVE!”

 

They hear her frantic typing onto the keypad in the rover as they scramble back across the roof - Bellamy moving slower than the others - down the ladder and onto the thick grass. Bellamy tries to climb down almost entirely favoring his right side, and a fresh wave of pain and guilt wash over Clarke. But before she can say anything, she hears the rover roaring to life, and Monty screaming, “Three minutes! Run!" 

 

 _We’re not going to make it back home_ is the only thought in Clarke’s head as a stitch tears across her side, and she gasps for breath. She keeps her eyes on the rover at the edge of the woods and beats her boots into the dirt. She reaches for Bellamy's good hand and pulls him along with her, as the fields and trees swirl together against the brilliant blue sky in a blur. The toe of her boot collides with an upturned rock, and she almost goes stumbling. But Bellamy steadies her by gripping her waist, and she hears him hiss in pain at the sudden movement. 

 

But then abruptly, out of nowhere, Raven’s voice rings out from the black box, “How do you like me now, you robotic bitch?! I DID IT!”

 

It can only mean one thing.

 

Everything happens so fast. Monty's high-fiving Raven, and Miller is literally whooping, arms thrown back and head tilted up toward the sky like a flightless bird. Jasper swings Clarke into a hug, and then someone's hand is on her lower back, gently pushing her toward the rover’s open door, so she can climb inside.

 

“I shut it down! I shut it down!” Raven chirps excitedly, over and over from her perch by the computer. Harper launches herself at Raven, wrapping her friend in a hug. Yelling, crying, and laughing fill the rover in a cacophony of unbelievable delight.

 

Clarke’s eyes search for Bellamy amid the confusion of limbs. He looks pale and drained propped up against a side wall. His shirt is torn, and blood blooms across it in an intricate pattern. She rushes over to the emergency medical kit, grabbing at gauze, bandages, disinfectant, and ointment, anything really that she thinks may help.

 

His skin is ashen when she kneels down beside him and carefully rips open his shirt at the shoulder seam.

 

“Bellamy? You with me? How are you feeling?” she says softly into his ear.

 

“I’ve been better, Princess,” he replies faintly.

 

“You just helped save the world, so it’s time to start feeling pretty damn good,” she grins at him. "You're going to be ok." 

 

The gash is deep, just like she expected, and he’s lost a good amount of blood. She cleans up what she can and winds tight bandages around the wound.

 

“This is going to hold until we get back home, and then I can stitch you up properly,” she whispers, pushing his sweaty hair off his forehead.

 

“Ok, I trust you,” he says, his voice stronger.

 

She moves to stand up and put away the first aid kit, but he grabs a fistful of her shirt with his good hand, pulling her back down.

 

“Stay,” he orders, and closes his eyes, tilting his head back against the wall in exhaustion.

 

"Ok, I will," she whispers so quietly that only he can hear her. 

 

She tucks into his uninjured right side, allowing him to wrap his arm around her waist, and settles her head in the hollow created by his neck and shoulder. His grip feels sure and steady, and the sound of his heartbeat thrumming through his ribcage is the best sound she's ever heard.

 

Before her eyes flutter shut, Clarke decides to attribute Raven’s impish grin to their narrowly avoiding a nuclear disaster, although one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.


	5. To Still the Beating of My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to party, Arkadia-style.

_“What would I do without your smart mouth?_

_Drawing me in, and you kicking me out_

_You've got my head spinning, no kidding, I can't pin you down._

_What's going on in that beautiful mind?_

_I'm on your magical mystery ride,_

_And I'm so dizzy, don't know what hit me, but I'll be all right._

_My head’s under water,_

_But I'm breathing fine_

_You're crazy, and I'm out of my mind._

_'Cause all of me_

_Loves all of you_

_Love your curves and all your edges_

_All your perfect imperfections_

_Give your all to me,_

_I'll give my all to you_

_You're my end and my beginning_

_Even when I lose I'm winning.”_

_~John Legend, “All of Me”_

Clarke knows it's crazy. But, as the rover plods steadily along past long-abandoned fields and into marshlands, she periodically slips her fingers behind Bellamy’s back and along his ribcage, just to feel the steady drumming of his heart as he sleeps.

 

When, after two hours he wakes and croaks out, “Water please,” she holds the container to his chapped lips and watches his Adam’s apple bob as he gulps it down. She feels she can't deny him anything after he almost died back there.

 

Harper comes over and crouches down near Clarke.

 

“Maybe you two should each take a sleeping pill and relax. It’s a long drive back, and Bellamy could use a real rest,” she says kindly.

 

“Yeah, ok,” he agrees, eyes still pressed shut.

 

Clarke rummages in her bag and presses a small, oval-shaped white pill into his hand, which he swallows immediately, chasing it down with water.

 

The scenery turns wilder as they drive on, with blue-purple mountains in the distance giving rise to the dense forests that will lead them back to Arkadia. Eventually, Clarke too caves in, slipping a pill into her mouth. She closes her eyes, longing to let go of her consciousness the way the branches outside let go of their leaves. The sinking sun’s rays cast long shadows across the forest floor as she lets the darkness pull her down, resting her head on Bellamy’s shoulder.

 

So exhausted, she never notices Miller nudge Harper in the ribs playfully, pointing his chin in her direction. She can't hear them all whispering – somewhat loudly – to each other as they take bets on how long it will take their co-leaders to finally, _finally,_ **finally** get together. Jasper wants to sweeten the deal by debating who will make the first move.

 

“Might as well,” he says lightly. “Since we can’t play music and risk waking up the lovebirds.”

 

“They deserve some rest, Jasper!” Miller reminds him. “Bellamy could have died today trying to save your ass! Let him sleep.”

 

Their romantic theories grow more far-fetched as time passes, causing Harper to roll her eyes when the phrase “sex on the Council room table” pops up.

 

Monty shoots a wary glance over at Bellamy, but he simply rustles lightly in his slumber, pulling Clarke a little closer to him by her waist. Surely, if anything was going to wake them up, that would have.

 

“You’re crazy, Monty,” Raven hisses out during a heated back-and-forth. With her hands gripping the wheel, she looks at him through the rearview mirror. “He’s too stubborn to ever initiate anything with her. He’s got too many abandonment issues after Mount Weather and the Octavia thing.”

 

“Did you get a Ph.D. in psychology without telling us?” Monty counters. “How do you know what’s going to happen?”

 

“I’m telling you, it’s women’s intuition,” she replies more kindly. “He’s going to need a little push. He’s not as tough as he wants you to believe.”

 

“Well, you’re the one who needs to pay better attention if you think Clarke even notices that boy’s puppy-dog eyes for her,” Monty says. “So don’t hold your breath waiting for her to do anything about it. We could all be in our 80s by then.”

 

Harper pulls a blanket over their legs and wraps her arms around Monty's torso. 

 

“I think she notices,” she says softly. “I mean, we all notice, so she has to. But I don’t think she lets herself really see it if that makes sense.”

 

Raven chuckles. “I don’t know which one of you is right. But anything can happen once we're back in Arkadia. Because I plan,” she turns around and flashes them all a grin, “to spend the next few days in a perpetual state of tipsy. It’s not everyday you stop nuclear reactors from turning humanity into charred bacon.”

 

While the others grimace slightly at her choice of metaphor, Jasper looks longingly out the back window as two birds soar by and says, “It’d be so nice to fry up some bacon.”

 

“Dude . . . ” Miller breaks into his reverie. “We’ve got more important things to discuss.”

 

“Like how we’re getting hammered at our apocalypse denied party?” Jasper whisper-shouts in his best stoner-kid accent. They hush him, but laugh anyway, glancing guiltily over at Bellamy and Clarke. But their faces look undisturbed and relaxed as they curl slightly toward each other, still very much asleep.

 

*******

_Epic._

 

That's the word which springs into mind as Clarke’s eyes take in the gorgeous party decorations transforming the Ark’s canteen into a magical wonderland. Someone found a ream of thick, black paper and punched small holes throughout it, stringing it up across the ceiling to resemble stars in the night sky. Dimly-lit light bulbs enhance the effect, causing the stars to twinkle cheerfully. And intricately woven, large paper snowflakes dance from above at various heights all around the room. Golden cloth streamers wrap up the legs of the tables and around the backs of the chairs like exotic snakes. Sparkling silver sheets blanket the tables and makeshift bar counter, covering the chipped and cracked areas. Dedicated members of the Ark’s former farm crew even potted multiple, small fir trees around a dance floor space, enhancing the effect by dusting the tops with some sort of silver paint to resemble snow.

 

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Abby gushes to her daughter as they stand at the entrance door together. She looks younger and much more carefree this evening with her dirty blonde hair flowing down her back. She’s even put on her lacy crimson dress that Clarke has only seen her wear a handful of times on the Ark for the most special of occasions like Commitment Ceremonies. “We wanted it to look like winter to celebrate the fact that we’re actually going to have one this year thanks to you all!"

 

“It’s beautiful,” Clarke breathes as she takes it all in. “But where did all this extra stuff come from?”

 

“Turns out we still had some arts-and-crafts supplies from the early colonists locked away,” Abby winks at her. “They’ve been gathering dust for years while everyone waited for a special occasion. Kane and I figured this qualified."

 

Clarke smiles back. In her mind’s eye, she contemplates how to get her hands on those art supplies. _Was there more paint? Actual glitter to decorate drawings or clothes?_ But then a rush of cheers and chatter from the hallway break into her thoughts.

 

“Time to get this party started!” Kane says. He’s been watching Abby show Clarke the transformed space from across the room. Now he walks over to the mother and daughter, beaming at them both.

 

“Let’s do it!” Clarke replies enthusiastically, and he throws open the door with a flourish.

 

*******

 

Fast, upbeat music pulses through the room as people lines up in front of the buffet table and others make a beeline for the bar.

 

Clarke watches Murphy and Bellamy head off to get a drink and decides to follow them. Just two people separate her from her friends, and she's about to grab their attention when Roan steps into line behind her.

 

“Good to see you,” she smiles politely at him. “I’m glad you could come.”

 

“I hear we all owe you and your friends a lot for what you did out there,” he replies.

 

“It was the right thing to do," Clarke says simply.

 

He nods, and they inch up in line in time to hear the bartender’s words to a man in front of her.

 

“So I get to serve the hero who saved the world,” she smiles up at Bellamy, smoothing her shirt down across her hip and flipping her long, glossy hair over her shoulder. “Aren’t I a lucky girl?”

 

Clarke recognizes her immediately. Lysa. The petite brunette was one of the original hundred, but she hadn’t seen her much since Mount Weather. Clarke suddenly feels like she's been punched in the gut unexpectedly. The scene seems to unfold from far away, as if she's watching it through the wrong end of a telescope.

 

“I’m not sure I’d say that,” Bellamy returns. His voice is low, and Clarke has to strain to hear. She feels more than sees Roan shift slightly beside her. Bellamy decides at that moment to look to his left, seeing Clarke next to Roan in line. Their eyes lock for a moment, and he looks confused, but Murphy doesn't miss a beat.

 

“What would you say, Bellamy? That you’re the jackass who almost killed us all?” he snorts, elbowing Bellamy in the ribs.

 

“I like my version better,” Lysa says confidently, pouring them cups of moonshine and tracing her fingers against Bellamy’s wrist as she hands him the container.

 

“We were just doing what was best for our people, for everyone really. Someone had to,” his voice is deeper suddenly, like he's more sure of himself. She hasn't heard that voice in a very long time. She associates it with a parade of girls coming and going from his tent at all hours of the night. 

 

“From badass Rebel King to humble warrior!” Murphy supplies, clapping him on the back.

 

Bellamy chuckles, but then a flash of blonde hair in the corner of his vision catches his attention, and he turns in time to see Clarke stepping out of line and moving quickly toward an elaborately decorated table.

 

“Can we move this along a bit?” Roan interjects loudly, causing the two adults in front of him to jump. “Line’s getting long,” he jerks his thumb behind him at the dozen or so people now waiting for drinks.

 

Murphy nods to Roan by way of acknowledgement, then promptly vanishes into the crowd. Bellamy, however, glances at Clarke's retreating back and narrows his eyes at Roan, ignoring him as he walks away. Lysa pouts slightly but resumes pouring moonshine for the next customer.

 

A minute later, Clarke grabs the drink from Roan’s outstretched hand and thumps it onto the table a little too harshly.

 

“You Sky People give too much away,” he notes, sitting down across from her. “There’s no element of mystery, no finesse. Maybe the Ark was too cramped for subtlety.”

 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Clarke snaps, totally oblivious to his teasing tone. “Little Miss Smile and Simper was doing just fine.”

 

“That’s my point. Her endgame is obvious; she’s all flattery,” he shrugs.

 

“Unlike yours?” Clarke snorts. “You’re the master of seduction?”

 

She goes back to scanning the room, and it doesn't take long before her stomach clenches. She watches Lysa saunter toward Bellamy and Murphy’s table far to the right carrying two glasses of moonshine, which she places delicately in front of Monty and Miller. Bellamy says something to her that is apparently hilarious because she giggles, squeezing him lightly on the shoulder.

 

Clarke catches Bellamy's eyes once more briefly. The smile drops from his face as his eyes linger on her table, and he turns his back to her. But he continues to chat animatedly with Lysa, whose face glows as brightly as the sunrise. Miller even pulls out a chair at the head of the table for her, and she gracefully slides into it. At the bar, a stocky guy in his late teens whom Clarke doesn't know now fills Lysa's spot.

 

Roan follows her gaze - tbough there's no need - but he can't make out whatever it is she mutters under her breath. 

 

“You wouldn’t know I had any particular interest in anyone here for example,” he says loudly and pointedly. That seems to crash through Clarke’s mental clutter, and she refocuses on him.

 

He casually gestures toward Raven, who is doubled-over with laughter beside Jasper as they stand in the bar line. Her dark ponytail swishes through the air with her movements, and above her rosy cheeks, her eyes gleam. She's radiant, truly happy for the first time Clarke can remember in ages.

 

“Raven? Really?” she leans in across the table, eyeing him suspiciously.

 

He shrugs nonchalantly.

 

“She’s been very convincing during your Council meetings, very powerful,” he offers. “And I haven’t seen her with anyone.”

 

“That’s because she hasn’t exactly had the best luck with men,” Clarke replies after a pause, taking a long drink of her moonshine.

 

“So she’s single?” Roan asks with more interest.

 

Clarke nods once briefly. She drains her cup and begins spinning the watch on her wrist around and around, fighting the urge to look to her right. She feels like a magnetic force beyond her control pulls her eyes there despite her willpower. She knows she should eat something, but she doesn't feel like it. She likes how the edges of the room lose a little bit of their definition, how her thoughts are not racing into the past or the future anymore. They stay within the easier boundaries of the present moment.

 

Roan downs his drink in two swallows and is about to rise in search of some food when Jasper and Raven fall into the chairs around him.

 

Clarke smirks because Roan’s features are the textbook definition of surprise, and he shifts his chair noticeably away from Raven. She even hears it screech against the floor. _The Golden Rule of the Ark,_ she thinks to herself, w _henever you talk about people for too long, they’re bound to appear._ But, rather than rudely point this out, she just raises her eyebrows deliberately at him as if to say,  _Now's your chance._

 

The content of her tablemates’ conversation soon flows over her like the background noise of a river, mixing in with the new song’s lyrics, an incessant _“Annie, are you ok? Are you ok, Annie?”_ Because as they all begin talking, she catches a glimpse of a mop of dark curls moving across the room, of a bronzed hand pulling along a young woman.

 

Clarke reaches suddenly across the table, picks up Raven’s moonshine, takes a large swig of it, and pushes her own chair back. It's not a conscious decision to follow them - she feels compelled to. 

 

“What the hell, Clarke? What’s up!” Raven yells over the music behind her, but she's already gone, pushing through the human sea, intent on her target.

 

She catches up with the couple as they approach the fir trees. Bellamy’s arm slips around Lysa’s waist, and he leans in to whisper something in her ear. She grins adoringly up at him, following him toward the dance floor.

 

Clarke quickens her pace, until she's right behind them.

 

“Bellamy!” she yells, perhaps louder than necessary. People in the vicinity stop to stare.

 

He turns to look at her, his face unreadable.

 

“What do you want?” he asks flatly.

 

Lysa crinkles her nose slightly, then cups Bellamy’s hand around her own.

 

“I need to talk to you. Right now,” a flush races up Clarke’s neck, but she doesn't care.

 

As familiar with Clarke’s changing moods as he is with his sister’s, Bellamy simply half-shrugs and asks, “Can’t it wait?”

 

“No,” Clarke says pointedly, the moonshine enhancing her stubbornness. “It really can’t.”

 

“Fine,” he says through gritted teeth. His anger's rising by the second, but he doesn't want to create a scene with all of Arkadia's population just feet away. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” he promises Lysa, who shoots a thinly veiled glare at Clarke.

 

Clarke only looks back once to make sure Bellamy is behind her as she walks toward one of the decorated alcoves near the kitchen. There they can be out of view of most people at the party, thanks to the hanging snowflakes she aggressively shoves out of her way as she steps inside.

 

He pushes one aside with his hand and follows her into the nook, which has a simple wooden bench with a thin blue cushion against one wall. The ceiling here too is covered with black paper replicating the night sky, and glittery, golden paper comets and planets adorn the gray walls.

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she rounds on him as soon as they are alone. Her words are a little rushed, like she's tipsy. But that doesn't matter right now.

 

“What do you mean what am _I_ doing?” For a second, she thinks his eyes narrow at her, but then they are innocently wide and chocolate brown again. He's only two feet from her, and she feels the heat that always seems to emanate from his body. 

 

“I mean what were you doing talking to her?” she demands.

 

“Lysa? She’s the bartender, Clarke. I had to talk to her to order a drink," he says sarcastically as if explaining how two plus two equals four.

 

“Don’t play dumb with me. It insults your intelligence,” she bites back.

 

“I was talking, Clarke. Just like you were with Roan before. You should understand the concept." 

 

She waves her hand dismissively. “He just wanted advice about something. That’s totally different from what you were doing.”

 

“Which was?”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

“I don’t. What do you mean? What was it I was doing that you found so upsetting you needed to yank me out of the party?” he demands, his voice rising. 

 

He takes a step closer to her, and she inches backward, determined not to let him into her personal space. But there's nowhere to go. She feels a paper planet crinkle against her thin, hunter green top. She swallows hard.

 

_Maybe this wasn't the very best idea, after all._

 

“You were going to dance with her,” she pushes the words out in the best accusation she can muster and forces herself to look up at him.

 

_I sound like an idiot. He can dance with whomever he wants. This is craaaazy. I'm crazy._

 

The cinnamon and pine scent she’s come to associate with him fills her senses, making it harder to concentrate. But his eyes anchor her. She finds a mixture of amusement, annoyance, and something else . . . Intrigue? Lust? tucked away there. She flattens her palms against the cool wall to prevent herself from reaching out to touch any part of him.

 

“Do you have a problem with that?” he asks quietly. His voice is making her heart thump out staccato notes.

 

“I never said I had a problem,” she shifts, uncomfortable. 

 

“No, but you implied it." He pauses. She isn't meeting his eyes anymore.

 

There's a long, lingering silence. Clarke reaches out and wraps her hair around to one side of her face, exposing the creamy white skin of her neck.

 

“Don't tell me you dragged me in here to not look at me, Clarke,” his voice is deeper and slightly menacing.

 

And for the first time either of them can recall in a long time, she does what he asks the first time he requests it. His eyes appear darker, and she has his rapt attention.

 

“She’s so . . . ugh. You could do better,” she finally settles on. It seems like the safe answer. Like the words of a concerned friend.

 

“I disagree,” Bellamy counters. She wonders if he means it, if he doesn't see what a sought-after commodity he really is. 

 

He turns around, therefore giving Clarke as well as himself a clearer view of Lysa engaged in what looks like a fervent conversation with two of her friends. Her brown hair ripples animatedly against the strawberry blonde locks of one and the sun-kissed blonde curls of the other. The girls crane their heads over the taller people in the crowd; it seems like they are trying to gaze into the alcove.

 

"She's exactly my type. Plus, she seems very  _devoted_." 

 

The word stabs at Clarke like a rusty knife as she remembers how ALIE Raven taunted him late that night not long ago. Adrenaline's coursing through her system on overload. 

 

_Play it off, Clarke. This isn't the moment to cave._

 

“Anyone who falls in love with you after twenty minutes is definitely lacking a few brain cells," she scoffs. "And come to think of it, she just might be. It took her way too long to learn the basics when we landed off the dropship," her voice drips with false thoughtfulness. "Something like two weeks to properly kill and skin a rabbit."

 

“Two whole weeks, huh?” Bellamy says mockingly. 

 

“I’m just saying you deserve someone whose survival skills are as good as yours," she tries to pull off a curt tone. She's sure she's failing.  

 

He watches her for a few seconds, wondering if this will be her final word. She only glares back at him. 

 

"At least she won't abandon me tonight," it's so unexpected she feels a chill wash over her.

 

"What did you just say?" her eyebrows shoot up, and her finger jabs sharply into his chest.

 

"I think you heard me."

 

"You've really lost it, haven't you? You think I abandoned you? Who the hell came running to save you yesterday at the power plant? Who helped pull you up to the roof and dragged you to the rover? Who took care of your wounds and gave you water and helped you sleep?" She's furious but devastated simultaneously, if that's even possible. The tears threaten to drip from underneath her lashes. 

 

His stony expression has some cracks in it now. He knows he's gone too far, but he doesn't know how to fix it. 

 

"Nobody's saying you're not a hero, Clarke. You do the right thing, and you save people when it matters. No one's arguing that. But, this," he gestures around the alcove, "us, maybe we're just past saving."  

 

She's crumpling in front of him, and he's compelled to hug her. But a smaller part of him wants to walk the hell out of here and leave her to deal with the mess they can never figure out. To make her feel some fraction of what he felt when he watched her abandon him after Mount Weather. 

 

The worse side of his nature is winning. He rips his eyes from her distraught face and starts to walk back to the bar. The music sounds even louder now. But it doesn't cover her crying behind him. 

  

“Bellamy, wait!”

 

He freezes because she sounds so  _helpless._ Clarke never sounds helpless. 

  

“You don't mean that! We're not past saving. I don't believe that. I need you!" she's pleading through the tears.

 

He walks slowly back to where she stands, in a shadowy alcove, unsure of everything. 

 

"You already have what you need, what you've had since the first week the dropship landed, Clarke," he says gruffly once he's close enough to loom over her. "I'm still here. I'm not the one who left. I'll still be your co-leader if that's what you want, don't worry." 

 

She reaches out to pull on his jacket, but he shakes his head. 

 

"Don't do that." 

 

"What?" she's distraught. 

 

"Don't act like you care more than you do." 

 

"I do care about you! I care about you so much I can't sleep!" she's practically shouting. "I'm afraid that -"

 

“Afraid that what?” His eyes search hers in a way that keeps her glued to the spot she stands on. She focuses on his long eyelashes, the defined lines of his cheekbones. She leans back into the wall, bracing her boot against it, which causes her back to arch slightly. She feels distinctly light-headed and also like she just doesn't care anymore. She needs to say everything. It's time.   

 

“I'm afraid if anything ever happened to you, I wouldn't be able to keep going,” Clarke barely whispers the words, looking down at the watch she rotates around on her wrist.

 

It's loud enough for him to hear them, even over the party noise, but he's so shocked he doesn't think his brain comprehended it. 

 

 _She doesn't want to lead without you,_ his mind fills in the gaps. 

 

“Sorry. What did you say?" 

 

He steps closer to her. _How is that even possible?_

 

“I said,” she begins, forcing herself to look back up into his eyes, “I don't want to be apart from you anymore.”

 

“Really?” he quirks up his eyebrow at her. She can feel the shift between them. The air crackles with an unseen electricity. He's ghosting his fingertips along the curve of her waist. She shivers.

 

“So what do you want?” His tone caresses her, the words coming out as smooth as the bit of butter she’d once sampled on toast at Mount Weather. He needs to hear if there's anything else there. If there will ever be anything else there.

 

" I want, I want . . . "

 

“Tell me, Princess," his voice mesmerizes her, but she's terrified. 

 

His scent is intoxicating, pulling her in. But everything else about the intensity of the energy rolling off his body makes her want to move backward. The physical presence of him almost pressed up against her body scares the hell out of her. But there's no place left to run.

 

_I want you not to die. I want you to want me back. I want you, only you. Always. Even when it hurts, even when it’s excruciating. Like now._

 

“You pull me over here to talk, and now you stay quiet. Which is it, yes or no?” Frustration infuses his voice, but she hears the tinge of hurt there, too. She remains silent, no longer meeting his eyes. He sighs heavily. "That's what I thought. Why don't you run back to Roan, then? We all know that's what you want most anyway. To disappear into the woods with another Grounder and forget your people."

 

It feels like she’d been slapped. She knows it's the worst insult he can think of, that he is still so upset about Octavia. But she can't help it. Her face contorts into a mask of outrage.

 

“That is not what I want!” she screams at him. Her emotions flow out like a waterfall. She's suddenly more powerful as she launches herself off the wall and pushes her hands into his chest, forcing him to back up.

 

“So what, Clarke? When do we ever get what we want?” he says sharply, crossing his arms across his chest and staring down at her. Surprisingly, he does not match her anger. When he speaks again, he doesn't sound cruel, just hardened. “Look, are we done here? I’ve got to get back,” he gestures over his shoulder. “Lysa’s waiting. I promised her a slow song.”

 

“No, we are not done!” she stomps her boot into the floor, staring at him in disbelief. _Where was the guy from two minutes ago?_

 

"We are," he says. "Because it's never enough. We're never enough. I'm never enough. That's the problem. That's always the problem. And no amount of us staring at each other is going to make any of that go away. It's too late," his words have edges like sharp rocks. 

 

They slice into her skin like the Grounders' Death by 1,000 Cuts. Somehow everything's going horribly wrong, is slipping away, and there is nothing she can ever say or do that can gloss over the irreparable damage she's done to their relationship. She was stupid for trying to make things normal again. They are like a broken mirror, pieced badly back together again. The cracks are too easily visible. She slumps back against the wall as a single, plump teardrop slips down her cheek.

 

“You’ve got it all wrong, Bellamy. I swear you do,” she whimpers.

 

His eyes soften a little, but she doesn't think it's enough. No eyes ever have looked at her so lovingly as his have during this time on Earth. And now none ever will again. 

 

“I don’t think I do. I may have for a long time, but I don't anymore. Fighting with you tonight has helped show me we're volatile," he says.

 

Her heart clenches as if locked in a small cage squeezing it inside her chest. _What did he think he had wrong before? Would he even tell her if she asked? Was there ever anything between them at all?_ She steps forward, desperate, and with both hands, pulls the sides of his leather jacket down to keep him from turning away and leaving her.

 

“You don't get anything! I'd rather be volatile with you than calm with anyone else. I don’t want to go be a Grounder. Roan and I weren’t talking about making Sky Crew into the thirteenth clan. He was asking me -"

 

She bites her lip and watches a snowflake turn lazily as it rocked slightly on its string.

 

“Where he could pick up a new Grounder coat? Did he think you knew all the best places to shop?” he's half joking, half harsh.

 

She really might hit him before this is over. His words stab into her stomach more than they should. “Stop acting like such a dick.”

 

“If I’m such a dick, why are you still hanging onto me?” he questions, his voice dangerously low. He stretches out his right arm, so his hand presses into the wall next to her head, making it harder for her to escape as he towers over her. "Don't you trust me with the truth by now?"

 

She glances down, surprised to see her fingers still wrapped around the weather-beaten, dark material. She lets go abruptly as if burned, but he doesn't move away this time. She feels his thigh brush against hers.

 

“I trust you. But it's not my secret to tell," she stares back at him ferociously, barely blinking. There is ice in her blue eyes, but his breath remains warm against her cheek. He stares just as intently back at her, waiting her out. “Fine," she sighs. "He’s interested in one of our people, and he was asking me a few questions about her. Not that that’s any of your business.”

 

Bellamy steps back at this, and she immediately misses his closeness. He runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “How stupid do you think I am, Clarke? You think I’m going to believe that the warrior king of Azgeda needs your help with getting a girl?”

 

“I’m telling you the truth!" she almost spits the words at him. “I’m sorry you think Roan’s intentions are _so_ sinister, but that’s really not my problem. You're going to believe whatever you want to. You always do.”

 

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he raises his voice. She jolts in surprise but then squares her shoulders. 

 

"It means you're a stubborn ass sometimes! You jump to the wrong conclusions. You don't always think things through or talk them out," she returns passionately, her own voice rising. "God forbid you seek out some confirmation before you just run off believing your own --"  

 

“Damn it, Clarke! You can't tell me that his intentions to toss you over his shoulder and make you his Ice Queen are really something I made up! I've seen you two together,” he draws close to her once more. “That’s why you’ve been spending every spare minute you can get with him, right? You enjoy it. What is it, Clarke? Do you miss the eye makeup?”

 

The urge to slap him literally makes her hand itch, but she isn't going to hurt him. Not today at least. She tells herself he's just acting out whatever drama he mistakenly plays in his mind, and she doesn't know how much he's had to drink. But she finally understands one thing:  _He is undeniably jealous. Of Roan._  She wants to laugh but realizes that wouldn't go over well. So she tries to stay as still as possible. An overwhelming wave of lightness thrums through her body, but fear follows quickly behind.

 

 _What do I do now? I can't run away. I don't know how to do this, not with Bellamy._  

 

Fortunately, he takes her nervousness for building anger and breaks quickly under her pursued lips and fixated glare.

 

“Clarke, I’m sorry.” He says after a moment, his facing softening. “Even if you and Roan . . . it wouldn’t be my business.”

 

_Now or never. You owe him that much._

 

“It’s not true though. I've never wanted Roan, and I'm pretty sure the feeling's mutual,” she insists one last time. He has to know that much, at least. 

 

The barest trace of relief flickers across his features, almost imperceptible. 

 

This is just too intense. The idea of trying to challenge the dynamic of their relationship is too daunting.  _What would it even mean, really? Wouldn't it totally alter everything? And what if it doesn't work out? . . . then they'll both be living in Hell having to work together._

 

“Look, this is crazy. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have pulled you away from Lysa. I’m sorry, too,” she offers, holding up her hand in a gesture of surrender. “You’re the hero tonight. Go and enjoy yourself. You deserve it. I’ll be here tomorrow if you want to talk. I’m not running away. I’m staying with my people," she squeezes his forearm reassuringly and gives him a small, tight smile.

 

He remembers those words from a lifetime ago. He sees her face illuminated by the flames of their first Unity Day fire. He recalls her appearing at his side, cheerful, glowing, smiling at him. They looked around at the camp they'd built with a sense of satisfaction. For that night at least, their people were safe, and they'd done that. She’d told him that night that he deserved to have some fun. Whatever the hell she’d meant by fun he didn’t know. She hadn’t lingered around long enough for him to find out.

 

She drops her hand and steps back. He blinks at her, shifting his weight, a little dazed. Tension no longer hangs in the hair between them, but he has the look of a man who saw a dream dying in his mind's eye. _What is it?_ she wants to ask but can't. 

 

“I want to work this out with you  _now_ ,” he says unexpectedly. He knows the opportunity may never come again. 

 

“We really don't have to. Everything's ok. We can talk tomorrow. Now go on back to the party,” she says lightly and tries to step around him. Yet he catches her elbow, pulling her back to him gently. Warmth immediately shoots through the left side of her body as it collides with his chest. She spins in his arms so she's facing him. 

 

“Who’s the girl?” he asks intently as she looks up at him in surprise. There's an extra glimmer in his eyes once more. 

 

“What?”

 

“Who’s the girl Roan wants? I think I deserve to at least try to warn her or something before he comes in for the kill.”

 

She rolls her eyes, but the corners of her mouth turn upward.

 

“I don’t think I should tell you,” she warns, although she's relieved he finally believes her. 

 

“Oh, I think you owe me a secret or two, Princess.” He moves a bit closer, letting his right hand trail seamlessly over her hip. He interlaces her fingers with his, not breaking their eye contact as he carefully presses her back against the wall. He raises his eyebrows at her suggestively, and she laughs nervously, a clear, ringing sound like wind chimes. He waits her out. 

 

“It’s Raven,” she breathes at last.

 

“Mmm,” he says. “A solid choice. I don’t have to worry much about Raven. She can take care of herself.”

 

“But you didn't think I could?” Clarke doesn't know what compels her to tie herself to Roan once more in his mind. But she needs to know what he’ll say.

 

“Oh, you can. But that doesn’t mean I’d let Roan try anything,” he returns, bringing his other hand to the curve of her waist, circling his thumb into her side slowly.

 

It's becoming harder to think as small bolts of electricity shock her system.

 

“I don’t think he ever would. He knows,” she huffs out the words, her heart beating in overtime. 

 

“What do you mean? What does he know?” _Why did his voice always sound like chocolate, like velvet, like honey?_

 

His pupils are completely blown, and she reaches up to cautiously touch his cheek, her hand skimming over his scars. She takes a deep breath.

 

“He saw us in that old train station, Bellamy,” she says softly. “He knows you’d do anything to save me. He knows how much. . .  I. . .  love you,” she hears his quick intake of breath. “He knows that nobody else stands a chance. How could they if I'm already yours?”


	6. Surcease of Sorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The situation in the alcove get a little heated.

_"I can't win, I can't reign_

_I will never win this game_

_Without you, without you_

_I won't run, I won't fly_

_I will never make it by_

_Without you, without you_

_I can't rest, I can't fight_

_All I need is you and I,_

_Can't erase, so I'll take blame_

_But I can't accept that we're estranged_

_Without you, without you_

_I can't quit now, this can't be right_

_I can't take one more sleepless night_

_Without you, without you_

_I won't soar, I won't climb_

_If you're not here, I'm paralyzed_

_Without you, without you_

_I can't look, I'm so blind_

_I lost my heart, I lost my mind_

_Without you, without you."_

_~David Guetta, Excerpts from “Without You”_

 

He blinks at her, shaking his head slightly. She feels his hands slide away from her body and misses their warmth immediately. The air pocket between them now feels as vast as the distance between planets.

 

“You’re  _mine?”_ he says in quiet disbelief. “You left me here for months. And when you finally came back, after that one night in Polis, you barely talked to me. You spent your time with . . .  _other people,”_ he says between gritted teeth. “That's love?”

 

A sickening shot of shame and guilt twists in her stomach as a picture of leaving him at Arkadia's gate swims into her head. She knows she’s on the verge of tears.

 

“Bellamy, I needed time after Mount Weather. You know that, please, please don’t do this,” she reaches out to grasp his hands – surprised when he lets her - desperate to bring him closer again. This little nook is the only place they won’t be interrupted by the world’s cruel demands. “Yes, we got into a stupid fight over Roan, and I’m sorry. But you know there’s nothing going on with me and him. And there  _never was_ ,” she states emphatically.

 

“Yeah, I know," he mutters begrudgingly.

 

“I thought I was doing the right thing for everyone,” she whispers thickly, pressing on despite the unease rising in her. “I couldn’t come back with you then – it wouldn’t have helped. We were so broken; everything was such a mess. It wouldn’t have worked.”

 

“We would have healed.”

 

Her face is screwing up into a bitterly hurt expression. It’s not flattering. She can visualize her squinting eyes and wrinkled forehead, her trembling mouth.

 

For several moments, the room throbs with the distant sound of, “ _Come on, feel the noise, girls rock your boys. We’ll get wild, wild, wild.”_

 

 _This couldn’t be more inappropriate for the moment if it tried,_ she thinks in frustration. Of course Kane had a hand in the music selection. She’d heard this song once before on the Ark with Wells when they’d come across an abandoned MP3 player tucked away behind a bookshelf in the library. She smiles a little, remembering how they’d shared a set of ear buds and how Wells grabbed a pen and pretended to scream-sing into his fake microphone.

 

Sighing, she looks up at him, “Aren’t we healing now?”

 

He shrugs, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know anymore. Maybe.”

 

“I thought we were. I’ve apologized over and over, but you’re still angry. I can feel it. What else do you want me to say? What do I have to do for you to stop punishing me?” she demands, her voice a little louder now.

 

“I forgave you for leaving,” he’s staring so deeply into her eyes that it’s hard to form words. She’s drowning in whatever secrets lay locked up behind their depths. It’s like traveling to another version of Earth with more jagged canyons and steep cliffs than she's used to. 

 

His hands shift in hers, and she grips them harder. “Then what? Tell me. Whatever it is, I can take it. I need the guy who’s always honest with me. Please.”

 

“If everyone else’s actions have consequences, so do yours, Clarke! It can’t all be a pretty picture again just because you want it to be.”

 

“What does that even mean? When was anything on the ground ever a pretty picture?” she demands.

 

He takes a step back from her, pulling his arms away. When he speaks, every word drops down like another brick in the impossibly high wall he’s building between them.

 

“You want to hear it? Really? You’re sure, Clarke?” he taunts her. 

 

“Just say it!” she yells at him.

 

“Fine. You’re right. I didn’t forgive you for leaving me! I didn’t forgive you for turning your back on me when I begged you to stay. And I definitely haven’t forgiven myself for letting you go. Why do you think I fought so hard to get you back,  _twice_? And then you didn’t even want to come home.”

 

His voice breaks, and he angrily pushes aside one lone tear. He smashes his fist into the wall a few inches from her head, and she jumps aside like she’s been burned.

 

“Damn it, Clarke! What else do you want from me! I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep . . .  _waiting_ for something that never shows up. How can I try to be close to someone who's got so many walls up? You don't even realize what it's like because we all fall at your feet, just waiting for you to turn and smile at us."

 

She looks at him, wringing her hands. He’s breaking her heart; she can almost hear it ripping inside her chest. “Bellamy, I never wanted you to feel that way. You’ve got to believe me! And I’m so, so sorry," she sobs. "I didn't know! I never wanted to hurt you. You’ve been everything to me. The best part of life on the ground."

 

He scoffs a little. “You knew. Everything I did screamed it. You just didn’t want to admit it. Everyone else knew.”

 

She’s taken aback by this display of honesty. She reels for a moment, not sure what to say, thinking about it all. Gazing up into his face, he suddenly seems much younger, much more vulnerable.

 

_She remembers his painfully tight grip on her forearm when she dangled over a pit of spikes. The vision of him sitting against a wide oak tree next to her late one night confessing the troubles that haunted him. She sees him defending Charlotte against a raging Murphy, knowing it was partly his fault Wells was dead, while she unraveled. She remembers the relief she felt running into his arms when she realized the dropship blast hadn’t killed him. And him promising her that the Grounders wouldn’t take Finn that dark, sickening night because she loved him and he was one of their people. She hears the glass smashing on the table when he knocked what he thought was poison out of her hands at Lexa’s treaty meeting. She remembers the peace that swept over her at the sound of his voice, coming from the walkie-talkie, telling her he was safe in Mount Weather. She recalls the twinge of heat she felt right from the beginning when he offered her an arrogant smirk in the woods, invaded her personal space, and taunted her, his princess._

 

And even now, hadn’t he spared her from the others’ rage when she returned to Arkadia, ever her protector, telling Jasper to back off or physically removing her from Raven’s bedside? Hadn’t he demanded that she not sacrifice herself to Emerson? Hadn’t he held her hand when she went into the City of Light and defended the Throne Room from ALIE’s army just so she could be safe? He’d even wanted to sacrifice himself in the nuclear power plant and would have if she hadn’t intervened.

 

_If that isn’t love, what is?_

 

“Yeah, I guess I knew,” she says after an eternity. She’s looking up at him with like she's never truly seen him before. 

 

“But it wouldn’t have made any difference, right? Even if I told you I loved you then? You still would have left?”

 

She knows exactly what he means. She scuffs her boot's edges along the floor, digging her fingertips into the cut-and-paste galaxies behind her.

 

_I never lie to him. I can’t lie to him. It’s going to kill me not to lie to him._

 

“I knew you loved me. That’s why I had to leave. You would have made it too easy for me, even after everything I’d done,” she says to the floor.

 

“How many times do I have to say it, Clarke? What  _we_ did. You and me. Us. I was there, too. Remember?”

 

She chances a glance at him. “Yeah, yeah I know," she says almost inaudibly. 

 

“But you didn’t want to share the burden with me because you didn’t love me then. So you can see why I’m finding it hard to believe that you suddenly love me now,” he says bitterly.

 

“Oh my God, you're so frustrating!” she cries out. “I love you now! I loved you then. But you’re right, I barely acknowledged it, even when people tried to force me to. I was so numb, so shut down after everything we’d lost. I was trying to protect you. How could I have lived with myself if the Grounders hurt you, too?" 

 

He doesn’t respond; he barely moves.

 

“Love was weakness, and it was going to get in the way. That’s what I thought. So I didn't deal with it. If you can’t accept that, I don’t know what else I can say. But, I'll tell you one thing," she says, more loudly now, taking one step closer to him. "I’m sick of you acting like you’re so much better than me! Like you did everything right! What about all those girls that filed into your tent when we landed? What about them, huh? What about  _Raven?_ ” she pushes against his chest tauntingly.

 

“How the hell is that the same thing?” he practically roars. “You were with Finn! And  _Raven came to me._ Because Finn wanted to be with you. What was I supposed to do?”

 

Her lip curls a little as the old guilt of that fiasco seeps into her blood and through her body. “You were supposed to keep it in your pants!” she spits out.

 

“I did, Princess. I never came after you, did I? You were my partner. I wasn’t going to screw that up. I even let you  _sleep in my bed_ and didn’t do anything.”

 

Clarke feels the energy in the room change immediately. It's like crackling electricity. An invisible beam of light connects her eyes to his, even though she doesn't think she can take the intensity, the vulnerability, of doing so. She can still feel herself melting into his chest, his arms wrapped securely around her waist.

 

“I don't deserve you, Bellamy. Nobody would have been as loyal to me as you were after what I did. Nobody ever has forgiven me and fought for me and protected me and challenged me like you." She pauses, wrapping her arms around herself, her face unreadable. “I don't know what to do with this. I love you, but you have to decide if that's enough." 

 

His pause hits her body like tiny pinpricks all over. But then he reaches out, slowly threading his fingers through her blonde waves, enjoying the smooth softness against his skin. Her eyes flutter closed when his fingers skim her cheek. Before she realizes it, his hands roam freely over her hips. He plays with the golden button fastening her dark jeans together, running his fingers around and around the circle before dusting them across the delicate skin above it under her shirt. He smiles slightly when he feels her shiver.

 

Wrapping his hands around her waist, he leans in so close that his lips are centimeters away from her own before he swiftly moves to her ear and whispers, “You’re more than enough, Clarke. You’re too much.”

 

“Don’t toy with me, Blake. If you don’t want this, get your hands off me," she rasps out into his neck. “We can forget this ever happened.”

 

“We can’t forget,” he shakes his head, looking back down into her wide eyes. “Because now every time I’m outside on patrol and I see you on the other side of the fence, I’ll remember what you felt like the one night you let me touch you.”

 

She opens her mouth to protest, but his mouth crashes into hers, and then she’s drowning in him. His lips are warm, just like the rest of his body, and he kisses her with a firm pressure. Immediately, she wraps her arms around his neck, desperate to tangle her fingers into his hair. She’s looked at those unruly curls for weeks, for months, wondering what they would feel like.

 

He grips her hips more firmly, pushing her into the wall, and she tastes his tongue dancing on the seam of her lips. She parts them swiftly, allowing him to deepen their kiss. He tastes like honey, and she moves her hands back down to his shoulders, letting them fall farther across his toned chest, before pushing at the edges of his jacket.

 

He smirks into her mouth but removes the jacket, tossing it onto the bench across from them. His eyes connect with hers for a brief second before he cups her face, and he’s kissing her again like a thirsty man in the desert who’s seen a beautiful lake mirage. She pants into his mouth, breathless. The muscles under his shirt are firm as she glides her hands across them, tilting her head to the side and biting her lip as his mouth moves to the pulse point of her neck.

 

"Arms over your head, Clarke,” he says gruffly, and she obeys quickly. She feels his right hand grip her wrists, locking them in place. Her eyes fly open as he slides his other hand behind her thigh, drawing her right leg up around his hip, which, for once, is lacking his gun holster. He captures her mouth with his own once more and presses himself firmly against her, sliding his hand up her side, faintly touching the swell of her breast.

 

She shudders, feeling him for the first time against her thigh.

 

“Bell-ah-mee,” she huffs out, “Let’s go over there,” she motions with her head toward the bench against the far wall.

 

He releases her wrists, and taking her hand, walks over to the bench. He sits down and looks up at her. Her thin top hangs off one shoulder, her lips are red and swollen, and her hair flows away from her glowing face, more wild than usual. But she’s grinning at him invitingly, and he can’t help but grin back. Her yelp of delighted surprise fills the space as he tugs her back down to him. 

 

And then she’s straddling his waist, locking her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him firmly. He expects her to slap him when he lets a hand drift tentatively to her ass, but she only moans softly into their kiss. So he wraps his other hand around her too, bringing her body closer to his, enjoying the friction.

 

He’s slipping a hand under her shirt, trailing delicately up her spine toward her bra strap, when the voice comes.

 

“Yeah, yeah, no problem, I think I saw them come over this way, too,” a familiar male voice is saying loudly over the music from far too close for comfort. 

 

Clarke turns to stone in his arms. He can feel her pulling away, but she’s not fast enough. Bellamy watches the paper snowflakes being moved apart, creating a gap, an entrance into their sanctuary.

 

And then Jasper enters their alcove, still talking, but Bellamy doesn’t hear the words. Jasper’s eyes land on the tangled couple, and his mouth falls open. He stops abruptly, causing Lysa to collide with his shoulder. Clarke jerks around in Bellamy’s arms to see who it is, although she wants to bury her face in his neck once she does.

 

“Jasper! Get out!” Bellamy shouts, tightening his arm around Clarke’s waist.

 

But a slow, lazy grin spreads across Jasper’s face as comprehension dawns on him.

 

“Oh shit!” he says, “Looks like I won the bet. Raven’s going to be so pissed.”

 


	7. The Heaven That Bends Above Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lysa doesn't like what she sees. Everyone else seems perfectly all right with it though.

_“Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone._

_I'll be waiting; all that's left to do is run._

_You'll be the prince, and I'll be the princess._

_It's a love story, baby, just say ‘yes.’”_  

~Taylor Swift, “Love Story”

 

Bellamy feels Clarke’s fingertips pressing harder into his back as he glares pointedly at Jasper, motioning in Lysa’s direction with a jerk of his head.

 

Clarke whirls around at Jasper’s words, disentangling herself as gracefully as she can from Bellamy and standing up beside the bench.

 

“What are you talking about? What bet?” she snaps, narrowing her eyes.

 

Undeterred by Jasper’s attempts to keep her outside the alcove, Lysa pushes past his outstretched arms and takes in the scene before her – Clarke’s torn shirt falling off one shoulder and Bellamy’s belt hanging loosely off his hips – then rounds on Bellamy.

 

“Looks like the Rebel King is still a player!” she spits out. “I didn’t take you for a bitch though, Clarke. But then again, you did steal Finn away right under Raven’s nose.”

 

Clarke’s too startled to respond, but Bellamy’s on his feet and approaching Lysa before she can blink twice. She defiantly glowers back at him, hands on her hips, silently daring him to justify his behavior.

 

“Take your anger out on me. I’m the one who deserves it.”

 

Lysa scoffs, flipping her long hair over her shoulder as it falls into her face. “Fine. You’re an asshole, Bellamy! You don’t spend an hour flirting with me and then run off with,” she gives Clarke a disdainful once-over, “the _Ice Princess_.”

 

Jasper jumps between them, arms wide open as he sees the nerve in Bellamy’s jaw twitch.

 

“Hey now, guys, guys, look, let’s all take a step back here and calm down before we do something _stupid,_ ” he looks at Bellamy whose lips are pinched into a thin line.

 

Bellamy moves around Jasper, fists clenched, but he doesn’t get any closer to Lysa.

 

“I said don’t talk to her,” he repeats through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry if you think I was leading you on. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But that doesn’t give you the right to burst in here and -”

 

“ _If I thought you were leading me on?”_ Lysa’s voice jolts upward incredulously. “Telling me that you want to take me back to your room later is pretty explicit, don’t you think?”

 

Jasper’s mouth opens and closes like a fish tossed up on a dock. Clarke feels overrun by sudden nausea. But she takes a deep breath, knowing she had no claim on Bellamy even an hour ago. Knowing she still doesn’t.

 

“Lysa, you know that’s not what I meant!” Bellamy says angrily. “You’re taking it out of context.”

 

“I’m sorry you’re upset, Lysa,” Clarke steps forward before the surprise fully dies on Bellamy’s face, putting a restraining hand on his forearm. “I shouldn’t have pulled Bellamy away like that. The last couple of days have just been really rough, and I wasn’t thinking. Ok?”

 

“Whatever,” she returns, barely glancing at Clarke. “What you didn’t know,” she takes a step closer to Bellamy, “Is that I’ve liked you since we landed on this godforsaken planet but always thought you were too good for me. Now I know I was wrong. You’re a dick for screwing with people’s feelings like they don’t matter. That’s what I wanted you to know.”

 

She turns and walks briskly from the room without a backward glance for any of them.

 

*******

Jasper moves first. The utter stillness of both his friends freaks him out.

 

“Well,” he tries his hand at a light tone, “I’m just gonna slip out of here and give you two some privacy. Take all the time you need,” as he starts walking toward the exit.

 

“Freeze,” Clarke’s voice is sharp. “What were my _friends_ betting on exactly?”

 

“Oh, that!” Jasper stammers slightly but then talks so fast the words blur together. “Raven didn’t think Bellamy would ever do anything about being in love with you. Like, she figured nothing was ever going to happen because she knew you wouldn’t do it. But Monty and I had faith in Bellarke. We knew our man would come through.”

 

“Bellarke?” Clarke asks, confusedly mouthing the word.

 

“It’s what we call the couple version of you. You know, Bellamy + Clarke = Bellarke. Get it?”

 

“Yeah. I get it,” she sighs, rolling her eyes. “Clever.”

 

“She’ll have to pay up now,” Jasper smiles, but it’s strained. “Doing our laundry for two weeks.” He swings his hands by his sides awkwardly.

 

“Jasper, Get. Out. Now.” Bellamy’s voice fills the space.

 

One look at his friend’s murderous face, and Jasper practically sprints out of their sight.

 

Bellamy turns toward Clarke, who’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

 

“Clarke, I-”

 

“So basically you told all of Arkadia you loved me, but then you propositioned the bartender instead?” she cuts across him. “And I’m not even an individual anymore? I’m a part of Bellarke?”

 

  _God, why are we always fighting? I swear if Jasper screws up this one perfect evening, I'll skip the guns and kill him with my bare hands . . ._

 

“First of all, I never talked about how I felt about you to anyone. Not even Octavia. Second, I didn’t _proposition the bartender_. I told her she could come by my room and see the few books I managed to salvage from the Ark because she said she missed having history class.”

 

“Right, because that’s not code for sex,” Clarke snorts.

 

“It wasn’t,” he says firmly. “We were just going to dance one dance. I was being polite. But believe what you want; you always do.”

 

She purses her lips at him.

 

“And the fact that she’s gorgeous never entered your mind then?”

 

He’s silent for a beat. But then the words come swiftly.

 

“She’s all right, but I prefer the Ice Princess look,” he smirks at her.

 

She shakes her head slowly from side to side but bites her lip and will no longer meet his eyes. It’s beyond frustrating how her body ricochets between anger and raw attraction.

 

“And Jasper’s right by the way,” he continues. “You weren’t exactly throwing yourself at me. We weren’t together yet. So why would I think you’d care if I spent time with her or someone else?”

 

Clarke’s head snaps up. “Yet?” she asks softly, glancing up into his eyes.

 

He grins and steps closer to her, the expanse of his fingers easily covering the distance from her waist to her hip bone when he reaches out for her.

 

“Yet,” he repeats. The slight hesitancy in his voice is adorable. “As in, we weren’t then, but we are now, right? I mean, we can’t let Team Bellarke down.”

 

“Not after how long we’ve made them wait,” she whispers cheekily.

 

But then her eyes search his for several, long seconds. His look deep and fathomless, a distant but warm world it will take her years to fully know. She touches one pale pink scar along his cheekbone and lets her fingers glide lightly down to his shoulders.

 

“I don’t intend to wait any more,” his voice causes goose bumps to pop up all over her arms.

 

When his lips capture hers again hungrily, nothing remains but her fast-beating heart and a shimmering electricity that lingers everywhere his hands touch.

 

*******

 

They sneak back into the party as unobtrusively as possible, Clarke wearing Bellamy’s jacket to cover up her ripped sleeve. The thick line of fir trees provides the perfect cover to slip back to Clarke’s table, which they find deserted. She doesn’t want to get anywhere near Jasper, who by now has probably told half the camp about the way he found them.

 

“Unbelievable,” Bellamy mutters as his eyes land on the far corner of the room.

 

“What?” Clarke asks as she slides down into the seat next to him, taking care to interlace their fingers under the dazzling tablecloth.

 

“Lysa’s already flirting with His Majesty.”

 

It’s true. Lysa’s standing so close to Roan – whom she has backed into the rabbit skewers platter on the buffet table – they’re practically chest-to-chest.

 

“Looks like she’s taking the loss of you very hard,” Clarke teases.

 

“Mmmph,” is the only distinguishable noise he makes.

 

Just then a few notes of bittersweet melody, he thinks it might be piano chords but has never heard anyone play the instrument in reality before, swirls into the room.

 

“Oooh!” Clarke jumps up and tries to pull him with her. “We have to dance to this one. I love this one!”

 

She gazes at him earnestly, an excitement he doesn’t think he’s ever seen dusted across her features.

 

“Dancing’s not really my thing, Princess. Sorry,” he shrugs.

 

“Oh come on! I’ll do all the work. You just have to stand there and look pretty. Please?”

 

“That’s how you convinced me to team up with you when we first crashed here.”

 

Her eyes widen in mock surprise, and she wiggles her eyebrows for effect.

 

“And there I was thinking it was me reaching for your gun.”

 

He cracks a smile that’s pure sunrise, and she knows she’s won.

 

As soon as she starts leading the way to the dance floor holding his hand, however, a noticeable rumbling murmur begins building around them. Bellamy looks out at the crush of people, noticing how many shift in their direction. Some are blatantly staring. He even catches a few of the younger members of the original hundred pointing.

 

“Everyone’s watching,” he says through clenched teeth as close to Clarke’s left ear as he dares to get.

 

“I guess the bets were real then,” she turns back toward him, seemingly serious.

 

But then the lilt of music swells around them, and she drags him out onto the dance floor to join the other swaying couples. “ _What’s going on in that beautiful mind?_ _I’m on your magical mystery ride,_ ” the singer from the long-distant past croons in a melancholy voice.

 

“You like _this?”_ he looks at her disbelievingly, making a face, as she drapes her arms around his neck.

 

“ _Yes,_ I do. It’s nice.”

 

He won’t admit it, but holding her in his arms in public – being able to finally say to anyone who asks that he and Clarke are _together_ is probably the best moment of his life to date. But he was never one who enjoyed being the center of attention – unless he was giving a speech to rile up the hundred and outsmart the Ark’s oppressive rule of law. That had been sort of fun.

 

Clarke’s a natural at dancing, of course. All curving lines and delicate footwork. She must have had lessons on the Ark, he figures. As she guides them around in a small, tight circle, he meets the eyes of several people who seem to have zeroed in on them. Miller gives him an exuberant thumbs-up, while Murphy runs his hand through his hair, shaking his head like he should’ve seen it all coming.

 

“They’re still watching us,” he notes, shoulders tensing.

 

“Bellamy . . . _relax_. I have a feeling we’re going to be the  _it topic_ of conversation for a while.”

 

“Still thinking highly of ourselves, aren’t we?” he jokes lightly.

 

“Not at all,” she replies breezily. “Some of the girls in the crowd look like they’d like to take me out with one well-placed shot. They’re jealous. Which means you're the special one.”

 

“Not possible,” he whispers into her hair, before letting her spin out away from him and pulling her back tightly to his chest.

 

She’s never wished for a spiky pair of heels or a bright, tight-fitting dress to wear until this moment. Back on the Ark, the wealthy girls who talked nonstop about finding the perfect fabric for their next party caused her to roll her eyes and dig deeper into her lessons. But right now, supported by Bellamy’s strong arms and looking up into the face that’s looking back at her so earnestly it actually hurts a little, she wants to feel daintier than her black boots allow. Making a mental note to talk to her mother about repurposing one of her old outfits, she settles her head against Bellamy’s shoulder and closes her eyes.

 

She doesn’t catch Abby blotting away a stray tear as she leans on Kane’s arm, watching her daughter from their table. But Bellamy catches Roan raise a glass in their direction and smirk. He can’t help but pull Clarke a little closer but nods his head slightly all the same.

 

“ _My head’s under water, but I’m breathing fine. You’re crazy, and I’m out of my mind.”_

 

“I see why you like this one now,” Bellamy’s voice breaks into Clarke’s happy daydream.

 

“Huh?” she asks, watching as he swiftly licks his lips.

 

“You _are_ crazy, and I _am_ out of my mind.”

 

Though not quick enough to stop the first smack to his shoulder, he spins her gracefully to avoid the second one. His laughter rises out of his chest, releasing the last of the anxiety trapped there.

 

“Too bad. You’re stuck with me now!”

 

“I don’t mind,” he says before bending down to kiss her soundly.

 

An absolute whoop erupts from their friends, but Clarke can’t stop smiling.

 

*******

Clarke takes the cold glass of water Bellamy passes her from the bar and drinks it eagerly, glad for a chance to rest. He barely takes a sip before Miller and Murphy come up from behind them.

 

“I’m just so proud!” Miller croons. “Our little Bellamy is all grown up!” He pinches Bellamy’s cheek as if he’s a cute infant and is met with a sound, but good-natured, shove.

 

Clarke doesn’t hear what Murphy says because she’s suddenly overtaken by Harper and Raven, who, completely uncharacteristically, squeals in her ear, ponytail swishing.

 

“I’m SO excited you two finally got your shit together!” Raven cries. “We’ve been waiting for _ages_. I mean, really Clarke, do you know how relieved I am that the level of angst in this camp can finally return to a healthy level?”

 

“Give her a break, Raven,” Harper supplies helpfully, giving Clarke a hug. “I’m happy for you,” she whispers.

 

The girls pepper her with questions about what happened in the alcove, and she gives the vaguest answers they’ll let her get away with. Judging by what she can see of Bellamy’s profile – he’s shifting around too much – he seems to be mired in the same fate. At last, she breaks away from the verbal onslaught, and stepping up behind him, slips her hand in his.

 

“Wanna take a walk with me?” she asks.

 

*******

A minute later, they’re walking through the halls back to her room where she pulls out a blanket and sketch book from her wardrobe.

 

“What’s that for?” Bellamy asks.

 

“I want to sit with you under the sky and draw it.”

 

He looks at her, perplexed. “But how will you see to draw in the dark?”

 

She reaches her hand under her bed, and finding her flashlight, flicks it on and off at him teasingly.

 

“This should do it. And the moon will help, too.”

 

The moon is nearly full, silvery white and gleaming down at them in what feels like a friendly way as they walk through the tall grasses that lead to the woods around Arkadia.

 

“Where do you want to go?” Bellamy asks her.

 

“Back to that meadow you showed me.”

 

He smiles.

 

Moss grows up the sides of trees, some of it faintly iridescent, in the woods they soundlessly move through. Once they arrive, Clarke lays out the old brown blanket, which is soft and fuzzy from frequent use, across the grass. Bellamy stretches out his legs and gazes up at the stars, pointing out the constellations to Clarke, who rests with her head in his lap, sketchbook against her propped-up legs. The distant sound of music and laughter float over to them from the party, but Bellamy is soon lulled into tranquility by the symphony of nearby crickets.

 

After a while, Clarke sits up and busies herself with sketching. Nothing competes with the insects’ hum besides the scratching of her pencils against the heavy, cream-colored paper.

 

“Come on, Van Gogh!” Bellamy teases after what feels like an eternity. “Show me what you’re doing.”

 

She flicks a piece of hair out of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear, and smiles slightly, but doesn’t look up at him.

 

"He used paints. And cut off his own ear," she argues back, tongue between her teeth as she fills in some shading. 

 

“Seriously, what is the big secret?” He tries to grab for the sketchpad, but she’s faster, smoothly pulling it away from his hands, which come up on empty air.

 

“Patience is a virtue, Mr. Blake.”

 

“Yeah, well, the way life on Earth is going, it’s a virtue I can’t really afford.”

 

She huffs. “Almost done, hold on.”

 

When she turns the sketchbook around, he notices the tips of her fingers lightly drumming against the edges of the charcoal sky she’s drawn. She bites her lower lip, watching his expression warily.

 

A rush of conflicting emotion hits him square in the chest. _It’s them._ The old them, standing side-by-side in a wooded area, gazing upward at the night sky to watch their flares explode like hot pink fireworks far above them.

 

He blinks rapidly at her because it’s the only thing that will keep the tears from falling. He clears his throat.

 

“You asked me about shooting stars that night,” he says gruffly.

 

She nods, eyes never leaving his face.

 

“I was so messed up then, Clarke. All those people – the Culling – it was my fault. I would never have known what to wish for – besides maybe giving them their lives back. Even when Jaha pardoned me later for everything I’d done, I knew I still owed a huge debt to our people . . . ” his voice falters.

 

“Oh, Bellamy!”

 

Anxiety melted together with pain flicks over Clarke’s face, and she tosses her drawing into the grass and hurries to sit by his side. She wraps her arms around his torso.

 

“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, baby.” He glances at her in surprise. She’s never called him anything other than his name in all this time. But he decides the term of endearment coming from her lips is fine by him. She makes it sound like music. “I thought – maybe I’m wrong, but – I thought that night, when we watched the flares go up, that we were kind of, bonding,” her voice goes up an octave on the last word.

 

He laughs out loud, and she inwardly sighs in relief. She’s pulled him from a dark mental passageway where all roads lead to suffocating guilt.

 

“Hey, y _ou_  walked up to  _me_ , if I remember correctly. I was just standing by myself minding my own business," Clarke chirps up at him quickly in her own defense. But she likes to hear the reverberations of his laughter from deep in his chest all the same.  

 

“Sure, we were starting to bond. If you say so.”

 

"Don't patronize me, Bellamy."

 

Now he grins down at her. "Never, Clarke. But I don't think you were feeling super warm and fuzzy toward me that day after I stole Raven's radio."

 

“Hmph,” she offers noncommittally. It's a memory that still clenches at her stomach. “You didn't know about the Culling, Bellamy. That was never on you. The Council chose that. And you did everything you could to help find the radio when I asked you to."

 

He still doesn't look completely convinced, but the lines around his mouth soften. 

 

"I'd like to think you started making better choices when you started listening to me," she teases him, lightening her tone and biting her lip in the worry that she's taking them back toward a black hole of grief and guilt. They can't live there anymore. 

 

"Is that right?" Bellamy cocks his eyebrow up, and a lazy half-grin warms up his face. 

 

She erupts into giggles as he lunges forward and begins assaulting her sides with the tips of his fingers, tickling her relentlessly. At last, she cries out for mercy, and he lies down in the grass with her curled into his chest, his arm snugly around her waist.

 

“I remember thinking that night that the sky was still our home,” Clarke says softly, eyes on the stars. “Even though I was happy to be on the ground, I missed where we came from.”

 

“I missed it, too,” he agrees. "We always had the greatest show in the universe playing right outside our window.”

 

As they lay there together, he points out Sirius, the Dog Star, calling it the brightest star in the night sky.

 

“It’s name is Greek, and it means ‘scorcher,’” he whispers into her hair, kissing her temple. “It’s part of Canis Major. The Ancient Egyptians said the rising of Sirius brought in the flooding of the Nile, and the ‘dog days of summer.’”

 

“You’re very impressive when you want to be,” she says to his collarbone.

 

“I have my moments,” he agrees with mock solemnly.

 

She chuckles.

 

“Bellamy?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I just want you to know that I thought the stars were our first home. I guess they always will be home, but I didn’t know you there, so I don’t know if it counts.” She takes a deep breath because saying _the thing,_ the thing that will make her the most vulnerable and exposed will also free her and make her light. “But then we inherited Earth, so we belonged in two places. And I’ve always felt split – I was good Clarke from the Ark, clean, shiny, medical intern Clarke with her insider knowledge and privileged status. And I was Survivor Clarke from the ground, too, doing whatever the hell I had to do to keep everyone alive. But,” she wants to look into his eyes, and the magnetic force between them doesn’t fail her. He’s staring right back at her with an electric intensity. “I always felt the most sure of myself, the most together, the least split, with you. When we were at the dropship, the 100 against the grounders, just trying to survive. I think you’re the real home I was meant to find.”

 

Her voice trails off into quietness, and she feels the steady pounding of his heart beneath her hand on his chest.

 

He doesn’t say anything, just draws her tighter and runs smooth circles around her palms with his fingers.

 

But then --

 

“Will you go out there with me? To the dropship?” he asks out of nowhere.

 

It’s so unexpected that the 'yes' simply tumbles out of her mouth. By then he’s already pulling her off into the darkness.


	8. Balm in Gilead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Bellamy's trip takes a detour.

“You're _the light, you're the night_

_You're the color of my blood_

_You're the cure, you're the pain_

_You're the only thing I wanna touch_

_Never knew that it could mean so much._

_You're the fear, I don't care_

_'Cause I've never been so high_

_Follow me to the dark_

_Let me take you past our satellites_

_You can see the world you brought to life._

_So love me like you do, love me like you do_

_Love me like you do, love me like you do_

_Touch me like you do, touch me like you do_

_What are you waiting for?”_

_~Ellie Goulding, “Love Me Like You Do”_

 

Moonlight glints through the topmost branches as they make their way deeper into the woods. Their boots are mostly noiseless after so many months of practice trekking across the well-worn paths. Clarke can feel Bellamy’s presence two paces behind her and knows that his eyes are scanning the woods in all directions, ever alert.

 

“Are you sure this is the right way, Clarke? I thought it was more due west than southwest,” he asks after they’ve walked for about fifteen minutes.

 

“I’m sure! I know the way to the dropship, Bellamy!” she calls back, half-indignant, half-amused.

 

Suddenly, a resounding crack echoes harshly through the quiet about fifty yards from them.

 

“Put your gun away,” Clarke says without turning around to look at him. “It’s some squirrels chasing each other.”

 

 _How did she know?_ he wonders, but his right hand pulls back from his holster. A moment later, he catches the bushy tail of a squirrel jumping into a hollowed-out trunk, followed closely by its companion.

 

They keep to the edge of a familiar creek bed for another two miles, heading southwest toward the place Clarke swears the dropship crash-landed.

 

 _At least we’re moving away from Trikru territory,_ he thinks.

 

Clarke does her best to avoid the squelching mud at the creek’s edges, which recent rain has made hazardous to those who wish to remain upright. Eventually, the creek bed widens into a deeper, faster-moving stream. She sees a split log laid out across the water and turns to look behind her.

 

“Was this always here? I don’t remember it. Did we cross it before?” she asks Bellamy, looking genuinely puzzled.

 

“Amazing Earth skills. Truly legendary,” he smirks at her, shaking his head.

 

She purses her lips at him, turns hastily, and jumps up onto the log to walk across it. She makes it halfway before a bit of slippery mud on her heel causes her to lose her balance and almost tumble headfirst into the water rushing by below.

 

His grip on her elbow is firm and reassuring. She takes a moment to straighten out her jacket – his jacket – as his other hand slides across her body, resting warmly on the inward curve of her waist. Her heart thumps a little too fast.

 

“Easy, Princess,” he whispers soothingly near her neck, where his warm breath sends a jolting heat through her. “Don’t rush.”

 

She offers the tiniest nod, then reaches out a hand to interlace her fingers with his and pulls him forward across the makeshift bridge.

 

The mangled tree in the clearing is his first clue, although he should have realized what was going on earlier.

 

“This is where we found Jasper when the grounders took him . . . ”

 

His voice is a little uncertain, but he looks down at her standing beside him. Her warm fingers still curl around his own.

 

“Yeah, it is,” her eyes sparkle up at him. “It’s also where you saved me from that pit of very sharp, pointy things.”

 

He remembers it like it happened yesterday. He had her arm in a death grip as she dangled over the spikes, gazing up at him. She thought he was going to drop her. For a moment, so did he. But something unspoken passed between them when his eyes had locked on hers, some knowing, some recognition. It was the beginning of the end as far as his cocky, to-hell-with-everyone attitude was concerned. From the second Clarke slammed back onto firm ground, he’d felt connected with her. Drawn to her. Increasingly more desperate to keep her from harm.

 

“I remember,” is all he says. “But we’re . . . a few miles from the dropship at least. What’s going on, Clarke?”

 

“What’s life without a little adventure?” she says playfully, breaking away from his grasp and moving swiftly forward.

 

“I’ve had about all the adventure I can take. I’m ready to box up my stuff, build a cabin by a lake and pull an Emerson,” he explains as he follows.

 

Clarke stops abruptly and looks at him incredulously. Her mind snaps back to that horrific day when she was forced to watch the air being sucked from that chamber, from his lungs, as the maniac Emerson looked on with pure joy.

 

“Why would you ever say you wanted to be like that monster?” she says harshly.

 

He looks confused, but then recognition blooms on his face.

 

“No, no, you misunderstood. Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was an American writer in the 1800s. He loved nature and liked to sit outside and meditate on things. That’s what I meant. I want the quiet life.”

 

“Oh, ok then,” Clarke says a little reluctantly. There’s still a small crease in her forehead. He has the urge to kiss it until it’s ironed out.

 

She leads him forward, through several fields full of monstrously overgrown blue-silver weeds, into another thicket of pine trees, and then, finally, through a clearing tucked beneath a canopy of ancient oaks and maples. Beyond it, he sees the land curving more sharply downward into a valley. There, the ruins of an old house with what were once majestic columns spring up from the ground, as well as the tattered remains of a few nearby stone structures grouped around a dried-up lakebed. 

 

And there it is at last. The underground depot Jaha once told Clarke to seek out for supplies and shelter. The one she visited with him as her backup because - and her words still echo clearly in his head as if she'd just said them - "Right now I don't feel like being around anyone I actually like." The depot's weathered, olive green exterior rises from the ground like a turtle with half its shell still submerged underwater.

 

“Did Kane ask you to load up on 100-year-old ammo and bring it back to camp or something?” Bellamy asks. “I thought we were going to the dropship.”

 

“We are. I just figured you might like a little detour first,” she smiles at him mischievously. “A trip down memory lane, if you will. You know you tried to teach me how to shoot a gun here.”

 

“Tried being the operative word. I was just hoping you’d walk out of there not being a total menace to society. That was the goal.”

 

She huffs in annoyance, and he laughs. But then his arm curves around her shoulders and pulls her into his side securely, and a bubble of giddiness rises up her chest toward her throat, where it threatens to spill out in sappy, very un-Clarke like words.

 

_What is happening to me?_

 

“Do you want to go inside?” he quirks an eyebrow at her.

 

“Yes,” she murmurs the word softly, immediately.

 

*******

Bellamy finds the emergency floor lighting and turns it on. Clarke sprawls out on the bed in the corner of the room, sketchbook in hand. She holds her pencil tightly between her thumb and pointer finger, concentrating intently as she puts the finishing touches on her art.

 

She doesn’t realize he’s watching her, hands on his hips.

 

“And what am I supposed to do?” he asks.

 

“Model for me? It’s hard to get your expression just right. You’re always so broody,” her voice is a little higher than usual, a little more breathless.

 

He picks a pillow up off a shelf and chucks it at her.

 

“Hey, watch it!” she shrieks, but then she’s laughing, and it’s like wind chimes reverberating through the small space.

 

Bellamy finds a blanket and a few more throw pillows in the bottom drawer of an ancient metal filing cabinet. He begins creating a makeshift bed on the floor.

 

“What are you doing?” Clarke asks him from her perch a few feet off the ground, combing her fingers through her hair. 

 

He misses the inflection in her voice, completely unused to it.

 

_Isn’t it obvious what I’m doing?_

 

“You want to stay the night, right? So I’m making myself a place to sleep.”

 

He glances up at her, and she pats the space beside her.

 

“Come here," she motions with her finger. 

 

It’s not quite a demand, but it’s certainly not a question. And the implication still lingers between them, heavy on the air.

 

He stands up and moves slowly toward her, sitting on the edge of the bed. She wraps her hands around his bicep and pulls him toward her.

 

“Bellamy!” a note of exasperation colors her voice now. “Why won’t you look at me? What’s wrong?”

 

It’s then the lone butterfly, neon yellow, luminescent, fluttering near the doorway catches her eye. Bellamy gets up and lets it out, locking the door behind him. But he remains standing by it.

 

“I saw Octavia in a grove surrounded by them one night when we first landed. She didn’t know I was watching. She looked so _happy_ , so free,” he says quietly.

 

Clarke can feel a few tears prickling at her eyes, but she blinks them away. Her face contorts into a frown, while her stomach clenches at the look on his face.

 

“Bellamy, come here. Please,” she holds out an arm to him entreatingly.

 

This time, he kicks off his boots and joins her in the knot of army-issued brown blankets she’s wrapped into a cocoon around her body. Slowly, deliberately, she unlaces her own boots and tosses them across the room near his. She turns her body so that it faces his fully and looks into his face, barely blinking. Very carefully, she reaches out and begins to trace the scars she finds there with the pad of her thumb.

 

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when she did this, Bellamy,” she whispers. “But you’ve got to believe that Octavia will come back. She's your sister, she'll forgive you. She loves you more than anyone.”

 

“I’m glad one of us is sure.” His eyes resemble deep wells, and she can’t look away. At last, he twists his face away from her touch.

 

“It’s all my fault, Clarke,” he says, voice ragged, breaking. “I should’ve listened to her when she asked for my help. It would’ve saved Lincoln. But I didn’t. And I couldn’t save Gina. I didn’t make her my priority. I chose things that made me a monster, no matter what you say. You weren’t there. You didn’t see Octavia. You didn’t see Mount Weather explode.”

 

A few tears escape from her eyes, and she swats away at them angrily.

 

“Please stop talking like that, Bellamy! You are not the bad guy!” Her voice grows more shrill.

 

She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself as his expression registers surprise. “Listen to me,” she takes his face in her hands. You’re a good person who’s done things he’s not proud of. So am I. So is everyone else alive on this planet. You’re human, we're all human. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up. You’ve got to work on forgiving yourself.”

 

Her eyes search his frantically, looking for any gleam of recognition.

 

“I don’t know if I can. I don’t even know if I know how,” he mumbles after a short while.

 

“Right now I don’t, either. But we’re going to figure it out together, ok?”

 

His nod is barely visible, and she sighs, leaning her back against the wall, stretching her legs in front of her and placing a pillow across them. “Come on, lay down,” she pats the pillow.

 

He hesitates for several seconds. When he finally does, the old mattress sags under their combined weight. Her heartbeat speeds up as his face draws briefly near her own, but then he settles down on his back, head on the pillow in her lap. She begins running her fingers through his dark thicket of curls and massaging the groove where his neck meets his shoulderblade, waiting for his breathing to even out.

 

“I didn’t know Gina on the Ark,” she whispers into the shimmering blue glow after a few minutes. “But I know she was good to you. And I know if you cared about her, then she was special. And . . . I’m sorry you lost her.”

 

“When Raven said I wasn’t devoted to her, it . . . it –”

 

“Come on, don’t do that to yourself. That was ALIE talking. She would’ve said anything to break you. But I know you. You always do what you have to do to protect the people you . . . _love_. You tried hard to keep Gina safe. You were dedicated to her. Don’t let ALIE lie about that piece of you.”

 

 _God, why does this have to be so hard? I can’t talk about this. I don’t want to talk about this woman he . . ._ But then her mind flashes to Finn, to Lexa, to what she’s put him through. _Pull it together, Clarke._

“No,” he says firmly, sitting up and moving off the bed. He begins pacing around the room, covering the length of it in four strides. She can see the tension rippling across his shoulder blades. “You’re wrong.”

 

“What do you mean? How am I wrong?”

 

“ALIE had it right. That’s how it was. I would’ve chased you to the edge of Hell if I had to to bring you back! I thought about you every day. You haunted my dreams. And I was with someone else, Clarke. Gina was good, she was real. She loved me. What the hell does that say about me?”

 

In the glow of the lights, he thinks her face looks heart-wrenchingly beautiful, even though it’s fixed on him with a helpless expression.

 

“Come on, Clarke. You’re a smart girl. What does it say?” his voice rises as he takes a swift step toward her. She sees his fist clenched at his side. 

 

Her draws her knees up to her chest on the bed, back pressed flat against the wall behind her. But there’s no place to go. And she doesn’t really want to flee – she wants to absorb all his pain from his body and take it upon herself.

 

She remembers Finn's hot blood oozing down her arm after she stabbed him. The young man who flirted with her, who tried to protect her, sought her out, made her laugh. But still, and she can admit this to herself at last, she never loved him like she loves Bellamy, so completely and naturally and against all odds. Like they're two half of the same fractured picture. 

 

"I love you, Bellamy!" she bursts out, starting to cry. "And I won't leave you again! I love you . . .even when it hurts," she pounds her fist into the blankets. "Maybe especially when it hurts!" 

 

He’s so very still, a statue of cloth on stone. Then she sees his jaw muscle twitch.

 

"Clarke--"

 

“And it says you loved me, too!” she’s between a sob and a shout, ringing her hands, but it feels cathartic. “That you loved me even when I didn’t deserve it. Even when I left you.” He walks back to the edge of the bed. “It says you’d sacrifice everything for what you believed in, and that you believed in us. What we had - what we have - is stronger than anything the Earth has thrown at us. And we should have admitted it sooner. Is that what you want me to say?”

 

“Yes,” he says grittily, almost sternly. “ _That is_ what I want you to say. Because it’s the truth. And we have to start with the truth, or this isn’t going to work.”

 

“I've known the truth for a long time,” she insists, scooting to the edge of the bed and reaching out to grasp his hands in her own, weaving their fingers together, delicately skimming the pads of her thumbs over his wrists. His face visibly relaxes at her touch. 

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“The moment you walked away from me to break into Mount Weather, I knew I'd made a mistake. I knew you were leaving thinking I didn't care about you," she chokes out. "But that was a lie - I cared about you more than everyone else! I let that bomb drop on TonDC because I thought it would keep you safe inside the Mountain!"  

 

He blinks, once, twice, three times slowly, mouth slightly agape. He squeezes her fingers tightly with his own. When he speaks again, his voice is thick with emotion.

 

"I would do anything to protect you, to keep you safe. You know that, don't you?" he asks softly, cupping her cheek in his palm. She leans into his touch, nodding.

 

"I know because I'd do it for you, too," she almost whispers. "Without a second thought."  

 

He presses a soft, chaste kiss against her lips before pulling back. Her clear blue eyes search his rapidly. He's looking at her the way he did when she mercy-killed Atom that night so long ago in the woods, like she's ethereal, and he's in awe. 

 

"Clarke I tried, I tried when you left, to lock down how I felt and ignore it. Maybe I should have tried harder. But when Indra said they were chasing you, hunting you, something in me snapped. I," he's shaking his head back and forth with the tiniest of motions like he's having a small fit, "I-I can't be part of a world you're not in."

 

Tears continue to slip out beneath her dark lash line, but she bats them away hastily and grabs his hands again. She’s nodding small, vigorous shakes of her head and trembling a little.

 

“Me too,” the words are hardly above a whisper as they float to him in the blue-black darkness. And then, rising up on her knees, her arms wrap around his neck, and she's squeezing him into her chest, snaking her fingers into his curls and bringing his head down to rest against the curve of her neck as she whispers soothing sounds against his skin.

 

Finally, she draws back, looking square into his eyes. 

 

“Bellamy, you’ve got to know that what ALIE said to you about me, about us, isn’t true,” she says firmly. “I am _not_ a queen, and you’re _not_ a knight. We’re two kids who got flung onto Earth from space and tried to survive in impossible circumstances. And it’s been brutal. But you’re a natural leader—and you were from the beginning."

 

He scoffs a little bit, and her hand wraps around his chin in response, willing him to really  _listen_ to what she's saying and absorb it. 

 

"I'm telling you the truth, Bellamy! The way I remember it is you never wanted to follow me or anyone else. You were arrogant and powerful and a little dangerous,” she reminds him, allowing a small smile to curve her lips upward. “But you came around, and we survived together, all of us. You inspired the 100. You kept us alive. You did anything and everything for your sister. You made us all believe in the future, and you made me believe in you. Don’t you ever forget that man is still who you are." 

 

She drops her hand and falls back lightly onto the bed, legs folded beneath her, cradling the side of her neck in her palm. She doesn't know why she can't meet his eyes now, why her words have left her feeling more exposed than when Jasper found them at the party. But maybe it has something to do with his very intense gaze. 

 

And then, out of nowhere, he reaches out for her waist and pulls her off the bed and onto her feet against him, so there’s hardly a sliver of air between them.

 

"Oh!" she exhales. 

 

“You made me believe in everything again,” he murmurs huskily, running his fingertips along the backs of her arms as she chances a glance at his face, not knowing what she'll find there. Her goosebumps erupt immediately when her eyes take in his blown pupils and one-sided smirk.

 

Her hand trails along the side of his cheekbone and down his neck. He shudders slightly. So she presses up on her tiptoes to kiss him soundly. There’s no preamble, nothing left to say. He slides his hands down to the small of her back and pulls her closer to him. She moans when his hands grip her ass and opens her mouth under his, allowing his tongue to delve in and explore.

 

Before she knows quite what’s happening, he’s lifted her up underneath her thighs and wrapped her legs around his waist. She’s half-panting, half-laughing with breathless delight as he places her at the edge of the filing cabinet, so now they’re at the same height. She bites down on his bottom lip a little, slipping her hands under his shirt and feeling the taut muscles of his stomach that she’s only ever been able to admire across the camp from afar on hot days when he worked shirtless.

 

“Do you approve?” he breathes against the delicate skin just under her ear, enjoying the scent of honeysuckle that cloaks her. She shivers.

 

“So smug, Mr. Blake," she teases. "Take it off,” she tugs up at the edge of his worn, black T-shirt, rolling her neck up and away from his warm mouth, which tingles everywhere it lands along her skin, exposing more of it to him in the process.

 

“You first,” he smirks down at her, pushing her hands away.

 

Clarke tosses his jacket she’s wearing on the floor in three seconds and yanks her own threadbare top over her head with a satisfied “Hmph” noise before recapturing the sides of his shirt.

 

He allows her to pull his shirt up over his head and drop it unceremoniously onto the floor. And then she’s back in his arms, holding onto his shoulders and giggling as he drops her onto the bed’s blankets and climbs on top of her, as lithe and graceful as a panther.

 

He kisses the freckles along her shoulders and neck, and she allows his fingers to play with the two golden buttons keeping her jeans securely around her waist. She feels him harden against her thigh as his kisses become more insistent.

 

He flips himself over, taking her with him as he sits back against the headboard and pulls her into his lap, straddling him. She’s desperate for friction and grinds herself against him, clutching the curls at the back of his neck to bring his lips back to hers.

 

“Easy, Princess. We have all night,” he breathes against her jaw when he comes up for air.

 

His fingers trace the ridges of her backbone, coming to rest at the snap of her bra. He easily unhooks it, and she stiffens just slightly, only for a moment, but it’s enough for him to notice.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” he tells her. And she can see his eyes mean it. So she allows his warm, calloused hands to pull off her bra and slide over her breasts, tugging lightly at her nipples. Her nerve endings ignite like they’re on fire, and she arches her back, pressing herself closer into his hands. When his mouth latches firmly around her nipple, she whimpers and lets her nails run across his scalp. His only response is squeezing her other breast a little tighter, tweaking its nipple soundly between his thumb and forefinger.

 

She slips off his lap, falling delicately back into the blankets, and he tumbles after her, kissing the hollow space between her breasts, working his way down to her stomach. When she writhes a little beneath him, he catches her wrists together over her head, presses his knee into her core between her partly spread thighs and resumes kissing her mouth soundly, allowing his other hand to knead her breasts.

 

Every feel-good chemical she’s ever read about in a medical book courses through her system when he releases her wrists and begins unbuttoning her jeans. She pushes them down her hips, leaving her in a pair of light gray cotton Ark-issued panties.

 

He runs his thumb between her legs in an upward stroke, smiling a little when she bits down on her lip. He does it a few more times, feeling her clit harden beneath the thin fabric.

 

“Bellamy!” she huffs out two minutes later when his lips break away from her swollen ones for some air. “Let me touch you.”

 

“Ok, Princess.” His eyes are completely dilated when they look at her, a mixture of lust, amazement, and something deeper reflected within them.

 

He flips onto his back, and she drags his pants down to his ankles, allowing him to kick them off. His boxers are a dark blue, like an indigo sky. She glides her body lightly across his, draping herself over him as she resumes kissing him while dancing small swirling patterns into his biceps and pecs with her fingertips. She feels him twitch slightly when she moves her lips lower, across his sternum, toward the thatch of dark hair above his boxers.

 

He lets her slide them down, and she wastes no time taking him in her hand. She strokes him gently at first, watching with a glint of satisfaction in her blue eyes as he hardens completely under her touch. He squeezes his eyes shut for a little while, but they snap back open again soon enough when he feels a familiar wave of tension start coiling tightly from deep within him. 

 

“Cl-Cl-Clarke,” he stumbles over her name, right hand thrown out to brace himself against the wall. “Stop, stop,” he’s semi-breathless.

 

“But I want to – ” she starts to protest.

 

“Not like that,” he sits up with some difficulty and strokes the curve of her waist and hip.

 

Her cheeks flood with a rosy bloom of color as his fingers press lightly underneath the waistband of the last piece of clothing separating them. His other hand presses into her back, urging her closer to him, and she obliges.

 

“Get up on your knees,” he says to her, voice low and gravelly again. The ice-blue emergency lighting on the depot floor casts violet shadows over her skin, but he keeps murmuring that she’s beautiful while toying with the long locks of her silky hair. She trusts him, so she does what he asks.

 

He resumes running several fingers up and down between her thighs until she arches her back and clutches at his shoulders, knowing a dark spot is pooling against the light gray fabric. When he pushes her panties down her hips and squeezes her ass, she wiggles them off and drops down onto the bed, allowing her legs to fall open slightly, so he can crawl between them.

 

His kisses sear the skin around her collarbone, her jaw, and finally, her lips as he thrusts his tongue back into her mouth. She feels his fingers probing lightly at her entrance, and then he’s pushing a first, then a second, finger inside her. The keening moan breaks out of her throat before she can silence it.

 

“Shhhh. It’s all right, Princess. Relax,” he whispers into her neck.

 

His fingers move together in perfect harmony inside her, stroking her inner wall and the patch of spongy tissue there, setting her nerve endings into a buzzing uproar. She pants into his mouth, nails digging into his shoulder blades, but he’s persistent in stroking her firmly, over and over again.

 

She feels her orgasm building from a place so well-hidden inside her she’s sure it’s going to rack her entire body.

 

“Bell-ah-mee,” she pants as his fingers move faster inside her, and every muscle in her body tightens.

 

“You're ok, Princess. Let go,” he whispers against her sweet-smelling skin.

 

And she does. In wave after wave of bubbly bliss as her muscles clench and unclench around his fingers. When he slides them out of her, he moves them immediately to her clit, stimulating it in little circles while latching his mouth onto one of her breasts.

"It's too sensitive!" She huffs out, trying to swat his hand away from her clit.

But he catches it in the air and draws it back to rest on her stomach.

"I know. That's the point," he says with a slight edge to his tone as he continues rubbing the delicate nub and kisses away her protests until her hips buck against him frantically. 

After a minute of seeing small, bright fireworks pop in front of her eyes, she feels him nudging against her still-spasming opening and clutches at his shoulders, looking up into his darkened eyes.

 

“Sure about this?” is all he says. "I don't want to push you."

 

She glances down between their bodies and sees him hard and heavy with need, looks at the way he's biting his lip so hard.

 

“Do it. Please,” she returns, breath ragged. "I want you."

 

He pushes inside her, filling her slowly as she adjusts to his size. He peppers several light kisses across her neck and jaw.

 

“You good?” For the first time he seems hesitant, unsure about all of this.

 

But then she rolls her hips against him and clutches onto his waist. She wraps her legs around his hips and smiles up at him cheekily.

 

“I’m not that fragile,” she teases.

 

And then he’s thrusting into her repeatedly until there’s only that pine and wood smoke scent of him, filling her mind as completely as he’s filling her body. She latches her mouth to his, groaning into him, and shatters completely when his hand finds its way between her legs once more.

 

He follows moments later, and the feeling of him releasing inside her brings the sound of his name from her lips. She has no thoughts, no memories, no connection to the past or care about the future. There is only a tingling warmth in her muscles, the darkness of Bellamy's eyebrows, the sheen of sweat over his abs that melts into her own skin, the sound of his deep breathing. Because her body is limp and heavy as he collapses on top of her, every bone turned to foam. He pants into her neck, and she kisses his shoulder, sucking on the skin there lightly before reaching out to interlace their fingers once more. When he regains his breath, he rolls off her onto his side, tucking her securely against his body and pulling the blankets up around her shoulders.

 

“Better than I imagined,” she whispers to him.

 

“Good to know you’ve been having sex dreams about me,” he kisses the top of her head as she laughs softly.

 

"Kind of hard not to when you're the best looking person on Earth," she teases, elbowing his stomach lightly. His lips seal back over hers, and she kisses him hungrily once more as he slides a hand along the length of her body, letting it settle on the small of her back. When he turns onto his back, she settles her ear along his ribcage, taking comfort in the steady heartbeat she hears there. 

 

Then the heaviness of sleep permeates through everything else, and she’s carried away into a rest so deep it’s devoid of any dreams at all.

 

Hours later, Bellamy rolls over in his sleep, wrapping his arm around Clarke’s waist and drawing her closer. The mattress creaks audibly, and her eyes pop open.

 

Her hand flies to her stomach. She can't believe she didn't think of it before. 

 

 _Is my implant even still working?_ is the thought that crashes into the landscape of her consciousness like a piece of the Ark hitting the fertile Earth.


	9. Epilogue: Evermore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When your epilogue is total wish fulfillment and you know it. But hey, if you can’t do it in A03, where can you? Follow me on this happy jaunt through the Candy Land formerly known as Arkadia, won’t you?

_“Hands, put your empty hands in mine_

_And scars, show me all the scars you hide._

_And hey, if your wings are broken,_

_Please take mine, so yours can open, too._

_'Cause I'm gonna stand by you._

_Oh tears, make kaleidoscopes in your eyes_

_And hurt, I know you're hurting, but so am I._

_And, love, if your wings are broken,_

_Borrow mine 'til yours can open, too._

_'Cause I'm gonna stand by you._

_Even if we're breaking down, we can find a way to break through_

_Even if we can't find heaven, I'll walk through Hell with you_

_Love, you're not alone, 'cause I'm gonna stand by you.”_

 

_~Rachel Platten, “Stand by You”_

 

Chattering birds pull Clarke upward out of the warm bath of sleep nine months later as rainbow patterns of light dance on the back of her eyelids. She’s nestled cozily into Bellamy’s side, her right leg partially wrapped around his own. She breathes in the spicy scent of his bare shoulder and groggily opens her eyes.

 

Her gaze lands on his blue-gray shirt crumpled at the foot of his bed, and she reaches for it, tugging it over her own head. One glance at the clock tells her the food line will be closing down in 20 minutes. It’s Saturday, and they’ve slept in longer than usual.

 

She lightly drums her fingers along Bellamy’s ribcage.

 

“Babe, wake up. Time to get some breakfast,” she murmurs.

 

“Hmm-uhmm,” he grumbles his dissent and attempts to turn over, enclosing her wrist with his hands, so she can’t move from the bed, either.

 

“Bellamy!” she rebukes him lightly. “I need to go pick up some food before the mess hall closes. There’s nothing to eat in here, and you’ll be hungry when you get up.”

 

“You’re so good at taking care of me,” he mumbles into his pillow, releasing her wrist. “But when you come back, we’re spending the rest of the morning in bed, deal?”

 

“No where else I’d rather be,” she hums into his ear before kissing his temple and slipping off into the shower across the hall.

 

********

Clarke scrubs foamy honeysuckle shampoo into her scalp, smoothing the lather through the ends of her hair. It almost reaches her lower back now. _Time for a trim,_ she thinks, glancing at the yellow strands wrapped around her fingers.

Several minutes later, she stands in front of a small rectangular mirror, one of the few that didn’t shatter into a million pieces after Mecha Station’s hard landing near the mountain lake. Her reflection offers her a small smile. _I look more like I did on the Ark,_ she muses. It’s true. Her face is fuller than during her first months on the ground, and her light blue eyes sparkle like a spring sky after a quenching rain. Her skin is clear with healthy tinges of pink, and she feels strong and full of energy. Wrapping the soft, gray cotton robe tightly around her torso, she splays her palm across her stomach, which is still flat. But now it’s completely her choice, rather than the result of a Council mandate.

After the destruction of the final nuclear power plant, the Council began making changes. And now, for the first time in a century, each Sky Crew woman can finally visit the medical center, and, if she wants to, remove the implant that kept her barren in space after the birth of her first child.

 

Once the decision was announced, Clarke began to notice more and more pregnant women coming into her mother’s clinic for check-ups as she completed her general practitioner internship. And just yesterday, Clarke, Bellamy, and the vast majority of their people who could get away from work assignments attended a baby dedication ceremony for the first sibling born to an Ark couple since they arrived back on Earth.

 

The event was held outdoors in a wildflower garden full of the promise of spring. The rosy-cheeked baby girl belonged to a beaming young couple from Farm Station. They named her Hayden Celeste, and Clarke felt an unexpected bubble of emotion in her chest when the jubilant mother handed her the blanketed bundle. She watched with delighted surprise as Hayden wrapped her tiny fingers around her own much larger one. Bellamy, meanwhile, had pulled Hayden’s older brother, Henry, an energetic boy of five, up onto his knee.

 

“You’re a big brother now, Henry,” he had looked earnestly into the little boy’s face. “It’ll be your job to teach Hayden about the Earth and about our people. You’ll have to make sure she has what she needs and protect her and keep her safe.”

 

He barely got the words out before his throat started to close up. A crease formed between Clarke’s eyebrows as she watched him, the only older brother any of them knew, pass on his wisdom to Henry. The little boy nodded dutifully, but then promptly slid off Bellamy’s knee to chase an enormous, translucent dragonfly that buzzed past his ear.

 

“She’s going to come back. I can feel it,” Clarke whispered into his ear while touching his forearm briefly. “Come on, time to meet baby Hayden.”

 

And she placed the gurgling baby into Bellamy’s surprised arms, watching his face light up as he talked to her in a very uncharacteristic sing-song voice while tickling her pudgy feet.

 

When she turned away, she noticed Roan across the grass plucking a red rose from the trellis the garden team had set up for the occasion, and tucking it behind Raven’s ear. Raven, too, looked unlike herself as she stared up at him in what could only be called wonder. Clarke smiled a little bit, shaking her head. She didn’t notice Kane watching her and Bellamy from the edge of the trees, didn’t catch him brush a finger swiftly across the skin below his left eye.  

 

Kane, as good as his word, scheduled a vote be held that summer so that each Ark citizen over the age of majority could determine whether or not to become the Grounders’ 13th clan. Although Clarke believed it was the most viable option for their long-term survival, she knew many people didn’t agree with her. She told herself she’d be at peace with the outcome of the vote either way. For now, a peace treaty stood in place between Sky Crew and the Grounders, and they agreed to share their knowledge, skills, and resources with each other through diplomatic trade.

 

********

 

“I like the name Hayden Celeste,” Clarke tells Bellamy as she drops cranberry nut muffins, two apples, and a canteen of water from the mess hall onto his sheets. “Her mom, Cora, told me Hayden means “hilly” and Celeste means “heavenly,” so she’s a blending of Earth and sky. That’s perfect, right? And I liked seeing Roan and Raven together yesterday at the dedication ceremony. They just looked . . . right next to each other, you know?”

 

Bellamy's dark wet hair is already beginning to curl around his forehead from his shower. He's wearing the only "lounge clothes" she's ever seen him in, an old pair of black jogging pants and a long-sleeved hunter green cotton shirt. They are long-forgotten items someone left behind in the locker room of the Ark's gym, or so he says. His nose is buried in a tattered copy of Plato’s _Allegory of the Cave,_ and he offers an “Mmmhmm.”

 

“That’s all you’ve got to say?” Clarke teases him as she sets about divvying up their food.

 

“Well, one thing’s for sure, she won’t take any of his shit. So if that’s what you mean by a good match, I agree with you.”

 

“You’re right, I put up with way too much when it comes to you,” his eyes bounce up to her laughing ones, but his quick reflexes make catching the apple she tosses over to him look too easy.

 

“I’d like to think it was mutual,” he returns.

 

Clarke doesn’t reply. Instead, she grabs a spare bit of tan canvas to use as a breakfast tray and climbs back under the blankets next to him to eat. After a quiet few minutes of thoughtful chewing, she says, “I wonder if I’d be a creative baby namer.”

 

“Wh-Wha-what?” Bellamy stammers next to her, snapping his book shut.

 

“Easy there, solider. It was just a hypothetical. Nothing to worry your big brain about,” she tousles his hair playfully.

 

He is still and silent for a minute. But then he says it so quietly she has to strain to hear him.

 

“I want to have kids with you, Clarke.”

 

Her eyes pop open wider as she turns to look into his face, to gauge his sincerity. His steady gaze cuts right into her core, and she feels a little hypnotized by the liquid chocolate his eyes resemble.

 

“What? You do?” she’s incredulous. “Well, I mean, I’ve never given it any thought, and we’re just getting used to living in peace with the Grounders, and we’re so young, and –”

 

“Yes, I really do,” he cuts across her forcefully. “I’d have as many as you want one day. In space, it wasn’t even a possibility. Kids were such a risk, more mouths to feed, more people to protect,” a quaver shoots through his voice.

 

She pushes their canvas trays away and swiftly slides under his arm, resting her head against his chest. She nods along with his words, knowing how much he misses Octavia. He hasn’t seen her since she climbed down the tower in Polis with Indra and vanished into the woods almost a year ago.

 

“But here on the ground, anything can happen,” he finishes more confidently.

 

It might be the most moving thing he’s ever said to her. But she doesn’t want to cry right now, so instead she says, “When did you start liking me, Bellamy?” as she listens to his steady heartbeat.

 

He chuckles. _Just like Clarke to change that topic._ “I thought you were hot from the moment you challenged me not to open the dropship door, Princess.”

 

“Get serious,” she slaps his side playfully and looks up into his face, which is tilted down at her and complete with wriggling eyebrows.

 

“I’m totally serious. You challenging me turned me on, but I never would’ve told you then. It happened so gradually over time, Clarke. That day you stood up for me to Jaha I started to trust you more. But I think when I realized you weren’t going to die from Murphy’s Grounder disease. When you told me you were feeling better, and you came over to take care of me, that’s when I knew I was in trouble. I cared about your health more than most of the others.”

 

“Oh!” it comes out like a rush of air. “I’m surprised you remember that – you were so out of it. That’s so sweet, baby. It’s not what I thought you were going to say, though.”

 

“What’d you think I’d say?”

 

Her face darkens, and she looks down at her hands, twisting them in the bed sheets.  

 

“When you found me with Roan in that bunker," her voice is strained. "I’d never seen you look at me like that before. I hadn’t let myself fully care about you until I saw how dedicated you were to finding me. Then Roan was threatening to kill you in front of me. That was horrible,” she wraps her arms around his chest and presses herself more tightly into his frame.  

 

“Ok, so, from your perspective, when did it change?”

 

“That’s easy. When I found out you weren’t killed during the dropship blast. When I saw you standing by the gates to Arkadia, I couldn’t get to you fast enough. “But,” she hides her blushing face against his pillow, “when Octavia snuck me back into camp and brought you into that room, that was . . . the tipping point. We weren’t arguing like co-leaders. I hadn’t realized how much I’d hurt you by leaving til then. I wanted to make that meeting about forming an alliance with the Grounders and being teammates again, but I knew. I knew that was over – we couldn’t go back to being the delinquents right off the dropship just trying to survive. I didn’t want you to see I loved you back. I didn’t think it was something we should ever give in to, but I knew. How could I deny it when you were looking at me that way?”

 

“It’s all right, Clarke,” he says soothingly, rubbing her back. “It’s over now. And I probably always looked at you that way. Plus, now, _you_ look at _me_ that way, even _in front of other people._ So I’d say things improved.”

 

“Jackass. So sure of yourself, aren’t you?” She purses her lips and shakes her head slightly, but he can see the underlying grin.

 

“I am. Come on, now tell me when you first wanted to sleep with me. I need the ego boost, Princess,” he bats his eyes at her dramatically.

 

“Bellamy!” she shrieks, grabbing a pillow and hitting his arm with it. “Tell me,” he insists, his voice deepening as he grabs her by the waist and flips her onto her back as she half-laughs, half-protests.

 

He begins kissing the pulse point beneath her left ear and down the length of her neck toward the hollow between her breasts. “Inquiring minds need to know,” he demands, turning his attention toward her stomach after lifting up her T-shirt to expose the creamy skin beneath it.

 

“Ok, ok,” she pants breathlessly. “When you called me brave princess in the woods when we went looking for Jasper."

 

His head pops up, and he's staring at her, surprised. He lets his eyes linger on her pouty mouth. "That early? Really? But I thought you hated me - I was such an asshole when we landed."

 

"You were. I guess, I don't know, I overlooked it when you came too close to me," she looks away up at the sky light. When she looks back at his open-mouthed expression, she pulls him toward her by the back of his neck and kisses him with a reassuring pressure. But when they break apart, her eyes are still distant.   

 

"Only Finn called me that,” she casts her gaze down for a moment, remembering the young man with the adept sense of humor who loved her so intensely, so quickly. She sighs, releasing his ghost. 

 

Bellamy silently and easily relaxes his hold on her, letting her sit up. She’s staring at him intently. “I don’t know - there was something in your eyes - I felt like you wanted me then, and it made me want you. Like the two of you were being all alpha male or something.”

 

He snorts, “We were.”

 

Lines creep back into her face, and new heaviness hangs between them.

 

“He was a really good guy. I still miss him,” Bellamy offers.

 

“Yeah . . . yeah, he was,” she bites her lip and runs her fingertips across her eyebrows for a few seconds, deep in thought. Then she looks at him with a clear expression.

 

“Anyway, I tried to keep the feeling under wraps from then on, but, sometimes I still wanted you, even when you were driving me crazy,” flirtatious energy rejuvenates her voice.

 

“Good to know. Well, you’re still a brave princess if you want to be. But now you’re my brave princess.”

 

“Is that right?” she asks incredulously.  

 

“What, is that not good enough for you? Did you need to be Queen or Empress or something?” he teases, attacking her stomach once more with his hands, causing her to jump back to the other side of the bed out of his reach.

 

“Well, if you’re the Rebel King, I should be an Empress, or the Mistress of the Universe at the very least,” she begins in a mock serious tone.

 

He looks at her half-smirking, but his eyes dance. He stretches back out on top of the blankets.

 

“In all honesty though,” she says, snuggling into his chest, her fingers outlining the muscles of his abdomen, “You can call me whatever you want as long as I’m next to you. . . But . . . ”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I was kind of thinking Mrs. Blake had a nice ring to it, you know, at some point down the road. And I guess a few kids won’t slow us down that much,” she smiles up at him.

And in that moment, looking through his window up at the sky his people fell from, he felt like all of space itself was not large enough to contain his happiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh! The end of my very first Bellarke fanfic! I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks so much for reading! I loved playing with placing the characters into new situations and seeing what would happen. The idea for this plot just fell into my head one day, and then I had to get it out through my fingers. I know this is one of people's favorites of the stories I've done (which always surprises me because I felt like I didn't know what I was doing!!), but I'm kind of curious what specifically about it you liked if you liked it. Comments are welcome - I'd love to incorporate those elements into future stories. Thanks, guys! You're the very best in the fandom. <3


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